


Colors and Promises

by NyxEtoile, OlivesAwl



Series: Tales From the Tower: The Next Generation [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adopted Children, F/M, Family, Friends to Lovers, Immortality, Muslim Character, POV Alternating, POV Character of Color, Slow Burn, Wakanda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-11-23 05:39:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 49,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11396448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyxEtoile/pseuds/NyxEtoile, https://archiveofourown.org/users/OlivesAwl/pseuds/OlivesAwl
Summary: "No one wants to push," Kamala said. "You were pretty adamant about not being a superhero. You'd be more than welcome, but everyone's afraid if they ask you'll leave on principle.”Raf looked back at his plate. “You think I should do it?”"I don't know. I don't think. . . I sort of fell into it. I mean, I could stop if I wanted to, but I like it. I like helping. And yeah, there's downsides. But it's worth it.”He smiled. “And the company is good?”"It is. We're family. All of us.”That hit him like a punch in the stomach. He hadn’t had a family a long time. “Okay.”She grinned and clapped her hands. "Welcome to the Avengers."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Finally! It's Kamala's turn.
> 
> Super, duper, mega thanks to Tumblr user byroncarter for being my personal Muslim resource. Thank you so much for answering my questions epic and mundane with thoughtful thoroughness. Kamala owes a lot of her heart to you.
> 
> I know we have some other Muslim readers in the crowd. If you have any questions or concerns regarding Kam's portrayal please let me know. I have endeavored to tell her story with respect and considerations for her beliefs and made an effort to think through her choices and actions in light of her faith. I hope I have succeeded.
> 
> Title is from _A Thousand Years_ by Christina Perri, a song I adore despite the movie it comes from.

Kamala had done enough interviews to know that the public's mental image of what it was like to be a superhero was a bit. . . skewed. People seemed to think they lounged around the Tower in their battle gear, having larger than life dramas and fighting off supervillains every third day. Even her family, who saw her every other Saturday and had visited the Tower on multiple occasions, seemed to think it was far more interesting than it really was. It had taken her parents years to stop fretting that the Tower was some sort of den of lust, temptation, and musical beds. It had taken sending them a video of the boys having a belching contest during a football game to get get her mother to settle down.

Truth be known, most days were pretty boring. There was training, though Kamala didn't do as much as some of them. Exercise didn't seem to make her stronger or faster, nor did the lack of it make her weaker or slower. She participated in drills and team training, but didn't have to work out the way everyone else did. Even Eli had to keep in shape. Sometimes she and Peter would have races around the city, her running, him swinging. But that was really more for fun than anything else.

Most days were spent goofing around in the common room with whoever was available, reading and watching TV.

"Maybe I'll go back to school," she said one afternoon to the room at large. Nate, Cassie, and Peter were playing some sort of board game wherein you were trying to prevent a plague from killing the world, while Kamala scrolled through TV channels and offered color commentary.

Nate and Cassie both looked at her like she'ds suggested setting the building on fire. Peter gamely asked, "What would you study?"

She shrugged. She'd left high school to join the government program that had gathered them together, as had Cassie and Peter. When the old Avengers team had taken over their training, they'd strongly encouraged them to get whatever schooling they'd wanted. She and Peter had done enough to officially get their GEDs. He'd gone on to study a bunch of science stuff, Kamala wasn't sure what sort of degrees he'd ended up with. Cassie had laughed at the idea and said there was nothing college could teach her she hadn't sorted out on her own. To her credit, she did have a knack with electronics and tech.

Science wasn't exactly Kamala's passion and she'd been dealing with some other shit at the time, so she hadn't pursued any college courses. Now, however, she was starting to feel oddly bored and restless in her spare time. Maybe taking a few courses would help.

"Literature, maybe," she said. "Or history. Sociology. Whatever interested me."

"Ada says she wants to get five degrees," Cassie said. "So she'll have more than any of the Grownups."

Nate rolled the dice and scowled. "You know Tony's going to get another one, just to be difficult." He pointed to the board. "I think we lost Calcutta."

"Dammit, Nathaniel," Cassie muttered.

"All his degrees are honorary," Peter said. "Got a bachelor's as a teenager and was done with it." He leaned over to look at their board. "Do I need to call Tess?"

"Do you get extra credit for having a real doctor fight your fake disease?" Kamala asked.

"No, she's just super good at it."

She didn't reply, because she'd flipped past a headline proclaiming "Major Earthquake in California" and had to go back to it. It could be nothing, the news networks back east made panicked headlines about minor ones Cassie told her wouldn't even get San Franciscans to pause their dinner.

"We're just getting reports in now," the newscaster said. "That a portion of the Bay Bridge has collapsed."

Cassie's head jerked up and looked at the screen. "Holy shit."

The game was abandoned while the rest of them shuffled around to look at the TV. A newscaster in a chopper was breathlessly describing the scene while the cameras tried to zoom in the the portion of the bridge that had collapsed.

"Similar damage was done during the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, but initial reports show this to be far more significant, with a larger portion of the upper deck collapsing and taking out part of the lower deck. Rescue crews are mobilizing by boat and there is no word yet how many may be injured or trapped."

"FRIDAY," Cassie said. "Is Sharon or Steve around?"

"Captain Rogers is on his way to you now," FRIDAY replied.

"We need everyone," Nate said. "This has got to be an everyone thing. I'll go get my suit." He looked over at Peter. "Can you lift a bridge?"

He shrugged. "We'll find out."

Cassie also hopped up, presumably to get her suit as well.

The elevator door slid open to reveal Steve Rogers. He glanced at the TV. "Oh, good, you've seen it."

"We're going, right?" Cassie asked. She didn't have a lot of family left, but Kamala knew she was from San Francisco and had a fond loyalty for the city.

"Yes. FRIDAY is rounding up everybody. If it needs it we can have the rest of the original team from Wakanda by morning."

Cassie nodded and ducked into the elevator with Nate.

Kamala knew she had to get going, too, but it took her a lot less time to get ready than them, and any information the news could give them was helpful.

Currently, they were showing a female reporter in the studio, squinting at the feed from the helicopters. "Josh, can you zoom in on the northern edge of the damage there? It looks like there's a person -"

"We have been getting reports of good Samaritans helping people out of their cars," the field reporter supplied, as the camera feed switched over.

There was. . . a blond man holding up part of the road deck over his head while people ran for safety. "Steve?" He came over to look at the TV with her, and she added, "Did Thor come down and not tell us?"

"Even if he did, I doubt he cut his hair, shaved his beard, and forgot Moljnir."

Kamala pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of the guy on the TV as the newscaster said, "We've just received confirmation that the Avengers will be responding to aid with rescue and clean up. But I think we can safely say at least one hero is already on scene."

"Finding enhanced people during a crisis is always fun," Steve said. "I'll go roust Darcy, too."

"At least he's being helpful," Peter said.

Kamala turned the TV off and stood. "And not ineptly attacking us?"

That made Steve laugh. "Yeah. Go get dressed."

Twenty minutes later she met everyone else in the hanger where Wyatt had the jet prepped and ready. And it was literally everyone. Her team, the old team. Even Sharon had zipped herself into her old tac gear. "This is going to be quite the party," Kamala noted.

"Does the jet have enough seats for everyone?" Nate asked. "Or will there be lap sitting?"

"I call Eli's," Tess said.

Next to her, Doc was on the phone. "No, you are not suiting up. Because you are _retired_. Because I will be busy enough without adding a heart patient in a tin can to my day." A pause. "I know it's vibranium and has a life support system, don't be pedantic, it means you know you're losing."

"Stark," Tess explained in a stage whisper.

"I just texted my Dad to go say the same thing in his other ear," Ada called helpfully. "Tell him I'm sending my brother next and he'll get cornered into a two hour lecture on triassic algae and fossilized fish bones."

"We're ready to roll," Kate called from the jet. Tess hooked an arm through Doc's and Bucky took the other to guide her up the ramp.

Technically, there weren't enough seats, but Tess pulled down the two gurneys and Kamala hopped up on one with Ada and Cass while Tess, Nat and Sharon took the other. Once they were at altitude they could get up, but Wyatt liked everyone in a seat while he navigated the New York skyline.

"So did everybody see that dude holding up the bridge?" Eli asked.

"I got a picture," Kamala said, pulling her phone out. Ada reached for it and it got passed around to the people who hadn't seen it.

Kate peered at it carefully. "Anybody have theories?"

"Darcy has FRIDAY running facial recognition," Sharon said. "No matches yet."

"Maybe it's someone completely new," Cassie said. "More people sprouting powers."

"Usually there's some sort of catalyst," Sharon offered. "But freak accidents do happen. As about half of you guys are proof of."

Kamala's phone finally made its way back to her. "I thought he looked like Thor."

Ada looked over her shoulder. "Oh. Maybe he's that other Asgardian guy."

Everyone turned to look at her. "Other Asgardian guy?" Nat asked.

She blinked. "Yeah. A few years ago he tracked down Thor. They knew each other as kids and he ended up getting sent down here accidentally."

Steve leaned over. "No one has ever mentioned this before."

The expression on Ada's face indicated she'd just realized she might be in trouble. Her next words sounded very carefully chosen. "The guy found Thor and asked him about his family. Turned out they'd been killed in the whole Dark Elves-Convergence thing. He wasn't interested in going home alone or being a superhero, so Thor agreed to leave him alone."

Steve made his annoyed noise, and Sharon gave him a quelling look. Nate said the obvious. "He's probably not going to be left alone now."

"No, he's quite famous," Vision commented. "Without new information regarding the earthquake news outlets have begun speculating on his identity. His picture is currently the most shared image in the world."

Kamala felt bad for him. At least their team had more or less volunteered for fame. He'd probably been minding his own business driving somewhere and now he was the most famous person in the world.

*

Holding up the bridge had been entirely instinct. Raf had seen it cracking and teetering, and he'd leapt out of his car to catch it before he could even think twice. Now he'd spent hours functioning as a post while the bridge was cleared, and people freaked out about what might happen when he let go. He'd been yelled at via a bullhorn from a helicopter, and spoken to by some very brave firemen and EMTs who'd come under the bridge to get the injured.

He was exhausted, and his arms ached. He'd once very firmly wanted nothing to do with the Avengers, but right then the successive sonic booms that hailed the arrival of the ones who wore Iron Man suits—though he believed it to be mostly women at this point—were the most beautiful sounds he'd ever heard. The Avengers would get him out from under this gods damn bridge.

Sure enough, a moment later one in silver and red hovered down in front of him. "Hey man," he said, voice echoing. "Need a break?"

"That would be delightful. The dude with the bullhorn thinks half the bridge will collapse if I move." 

"Oh, probably not half. What we got, Ada?" He tilted his head like he was listening to something, then he nodded. "Okay. Don't move." He lifted a hand and fired off a series of those little wrist rockets. They hit chunks of the bridge behind him and he heard distant rumbling farther along.

When everything had resettled, the Iron Man puttered towards him and braced his shoulders under the section he was holding up. "Got it. You can move."

"You sure?" he asked.

"Yes."

Slowly Raf lowered his arms. The bridge did not collapse. "Well. . . thank you."

"No problem. I'm Nate, by the way. Ada's gonna show up in a minute with a brace for this. Everyone else is deploying at various spots on the bridge."

"Raf Ingesson," he replied, because it seemed polite to introduce himself. 

A green and purple suit that was significantly smaller than Nate's landed with an armload of what looked like building jacks. "Vision's dealing with some people trapped in an air pocket and then he said he'd come help." Definitely a woman in there. Also her suit had an intricate pattern on it, carved or stamped into the metal. It was so impressive he leaned closer to get a better look.

"It's Alfan," she told him. "Protection runes. I'm Ada Banner. Are you Asgardian or enhanced?" Before he could respond she tilted her head and said, obviously not to him, "No, I don't think it's a rude question. We want to know, don't we?"

"I am of Asgard," he said with a sigh.

"You must be the guy I thought you were. Sorry about your family." She cocked her head, no longer talking to him. "One of you can go look, but those cables are fucked up. Peter needs to make some new ones or we'll be rescuing people with a squeegee." Pause. "Uncle Steve, you said fuck in front of me when I was nine."

Raf looked over at Nate. "Is this normal?"

He waggled a hand. "For Ada, yeah."

"I'd like to say you get used to her, but you really don't," said a woman's voice at his elbow.

Jumping, he looked down to see a petite woman with a black cloth covering her hair had appeared at his side. She grinned. "Hi. I'm Kamala." To the others, she said, "We're getting life signs in the wreckage here. Doc wants this stabilized so we can start evacuating."

He should just leave. They'd probably let him. He could just go back to life. He lived up in the hills, he could stay out of sight. Let it blow over. They were the Avengers. They had it under control. But something about this small woman—she was barely not a girl—made him find himself saying, "How can I help?"

Surprise was obvious on her face. She glanced at the other two, then shrugged. "We need to get the jack's set up so we can use this spot as an evac spot. Then I'm gonna start going into the rubble and digging people out, then bringing them out here for the flyers to take to triage. You can help me in the rubble so I can spend most of my time ferrying." She paused, then added, "But if you don't want to, Nate can give you a lift to land once we get the supports up."

"I'm already involved, might as well see it through."

So they spent the next ten minutes setting up the building jacks to prop up the section of bridge he'd been holding up. The rest of them were clearly hooked into a comm system that was giving them updates from the rest of the team.

Once the supports were in place, Ada and Nate flew off to work on a different part of the bridge and Raf followed Kamala deeper into the wreckage. 

"They don't give you armor or something?" he asked her.

"Nah, I'm pretty impervious." As if to prove it, she pushed aside a hunk of steel and concrete twice her size.

He raised his eyebrows. "What realm are you from?"

She grinned up at him and said in a gruff voice, "I am of Midgard."

She was mocking him and he ignored it. "How are you like this, then?"

"You remember the Battle of Sokovia?" He nodded. Clambering over a slab of bridge, she paused and scanned the scene. "I was visiting family nearby when that happened. When the floating city blew, shrapnel hit several neighboring countries, including Pakistan, where I was. I was struck with some that was heavily laced with vibranium. Because of the positioning, doctors weren't able to remove all of it. They thought I'd die but my body kind of. . . adapted to it. Made me strong, and fast. And pretty indestructible."

"And so you are an Avenger."

"So I am," she agreed.

"I don't know if I could handle being famous. Though you clearly do get to do some good." He gestured at the rubble.

She hesitated a moment. "Um. You might need to figure out how to handle it. Your picture is pretty much everywhere now."

Raf sighed. "Great. Do one nice thing. . ."

Her expression turned sympathetic. "I'm sorry."

"You must think that's shitty. You're. . .what, sixteen? And you stepped up. I'm almost a thousand years old and I hid."

"I'm twenty six," she told him. "But I don't judge anyone's decisions. This job isn't for everyone." Something caught her attention. "Hang on." Once second she was there, the next she was gone. Fast, she'd said.

"Hey, can you give me a hand?" she called out, not a few yards away, digging out a car.

He made his way over there. "Did you just dematerialize?"

"No, I ran really fast." He helped her clear enough space from the driver's door she could grab it and yank the door open. "I don't really have a jog setting. It's either moving slow enough for other people to keep up or moving at my speed." She reached into the car and felt for a pulse on the driver's throat. The woman groaned and Kamala smiled. She left her, then yanked the back door open to reveal two kids with tearstained faces. "Hi," Kamala said brightly. "You guys want to get out of here?"

They both nodded franticly. "I'll stay with the mother," Raf told her.

"Thanks, I'll send one of the medics in." She started unbuckling the kids. "Hey, Doc, Tess? I have an unconscious woman in a car? Don't want to move her unless you check her. Right, see you at the opening." She scooped up both kids. "Okay, hang on super tight." They obediently wrapped arms and legs around her. She tucked them to her chest and blurred away again in a little puff of dust.

It was kind of amazing to watch.

Exhausted and sore as he was, Raf found himself working the entire day with them, and well into the evening. One of the Avengers had the Mind Stone, of all things, implanted in his forehead—among other thing, it could light up bright enough to look nearly daylight, which helped greatly with the search and rescue. Though apparently his new friend could see in the dark as well as a cat.

Locals had brought food and drinks for the rescuers and one of the medics had brought them a box full. They sat down to eat while the medic - he thought it was the older one, whom everyone referred to as Doc, did a scan of the rubble to see if there were any life signs left. There were almost certainly bodies left. They'd come across a few in their work. Kamala had treated them all with respect, carefully freeing them from rubble and wreckage and carrying them out to the stable spot to be transported out.

Now, though, she was sitting with her legs hanging over the edge of the bridge, dangling above the bay, chowing down on large container of macaroni salad with gusto.

"Thank you," she said after a few moments of chewing. "You were very helpful, today. Made it go a lot faster than it could have."

"You are quite welcome. It is kinda my city."

She nodded. "It's pretty. Cassie is from here, you know. The shrinking one."

"Her family okay?"

"She doesn't have much left but based on comm chatter everyone she'd attend a funeral for is safe and accounted for. She's been asking to get on TV and personally yell at the mayors who let the bridge get this bad. Steve and Sharon aren't letting her."

"Used to be worse. You should have seen how many people died in earthquakes in Ye Olden Days. And there's always a fire because people are stupid. Sometime that is universal and unchanging, by the way."

She grinned at him. "How long have you been here? In the city?"

"On and off since the gold rush. Boomtowns are great places to be anonymous. Which is a good idea if you're extremely long lived." He looked over at her. "Is that why you look like a teenager?"

Her fork froze halfway to her mouth and she just stared at him a moment. There was something like real panic in her eyes. Then she gave a little head shake and pointed at her ear where her comm device sat.

So it was true, but she was keeping it a secret. Interesting. He looked at her a moment, then said, "Well, I'll probably still be loitering around San Francisco another century at least."

"You should try New York," she told him. "It's where all the cool superheroes hang out."

"Whatever I am, I am not a superhero."

"Today you are."


	2. Chapter 2

Once Doc gave the all clear, Kamala and Raf made their way to the San Francisco side of the bridge where they other team members had set up base. "Good job," Sharon told her, holding out a bottle of water. Kamala was long past needing the positive reinforcement, but praise was always nice.

She glugged down half the water before asking. "Are we heading out?"

"Steve and Kate are talking to some of the local organizers, we may stay overnight and do some more digging in the morning." Sharon's eyes shifted over to Raf, and she held out a bottle of water, which he took.

"Thank you, ma'am."

"Sharon Rogers," she offered. "My husband would like to talk to you when he's done, if you're willing to stick around."

He sighed. "Of that I have no doubt."

"Steve's very nice," Kamala told him. "Just ignore it if he uses Cap Voice."

"Everyone is nice when they want something form you," he said to her, then looked at Sharon. "No offense."

"I'm hard to offend," she said easily. 

As if beckoned, Steve and Kate made their way over to them. "We're gonna spend the night, a couple of hotels in the city are offering rooms," Steve announced. "In the morning they'll survey what's left to do and decide how useful we'll be." He spotted Raf and held out a hand. "Steve Rogers, thanks for the help today."

"Raf Ingesson. And you're welcome." He squinted back towards the bridge, then looked at Steve. "I'm happy to stay for tomorrow—I don't have any way to get home anyway."

He nodded. "Ada managed to get me a line up to Thor, he gave me a thumbnail of your situation. We're not in the business of drafting, so I'm not going to give you a sales pitch. If you find your new-found fame is too much, our doors are open."

"But you should probably stay away from Clint Barton," Sharon said, which caused Steve to laugh. 

Raf didn't ask. "Was the hotel offer open?"

"Yes, I need to give them a full head count, but considering most of us will double up it shouldn't be a problem to include you."

"You don't want to check on your house or anything?" Kamala asked him.

"It's an hour drive on a good day. Today is not a good day."

Sometimes she forgot other people had to worry about traffic and cars.

"Sit tight," Kate said. "I'll give the coordinator a room count and we'll head up in a bit."

"Thanks," he said, and then the three of them walked off.

Kamala looked up at him, wondering how she'd ended up on official new-guy duty. "So. You wanna meet the others? Find more food? Be left alone?"

"You don't have to babysit me. But I wouldn't say no to some food, the rations on the bridge were thoughtful, but not sufficient."

Given how much energy she'd burned, she'd probably still be eating when she fell asleep. She scanned the crowd and saw a line of food trucks at one end of the pier. "That looks promising," she said, pointing.

"God bless taco trucks," he muttered, and they started towards them.

There was a kabob truck run by two guys who just gushed over her and plied her with kabob, hummus and falafel and refused any attempt at payment. She brought her haul over to the picnic tables set up nearby to find Raf had similarly bought out the taco truck. She plopped into the seat next to him and rubbed her hands together eagerly.

"I see you eat like an Asgardian," he commented.

"I'm going to take that as a compliment." Ripping off some pita, she smeared hummus over it and used it to pull off a piece of kabob meat. "I burn a lot of energy when I run and lift stuff. Takes a lot to replace it."

He ate his gigantic burrito for a moment. "You speak any languages other than English?"

"Urdu," she said around a mouthful of food. "Little bit of Spanish, and I can swear in Sokovian."

Raf smiled. "Excellent. I speak Hindi. Stay away from the slang and we'll understand each other." Why the blondest man on earth spoke Hindi, she had no idea, but he was clearly doing just that. Ora Maximoff—who was a linguistics professor and possibly spoke more languages than anyone on earth—had told her once that Hindi and Urdu were, technically, dialects of the same language, and the division was entirely political.

"Most of my slang is English. I just speak Urdu with my parents."

She was about to ask him why he'd wanted to change languages when he said, "So you're not aging, and you don't want anyone to know."

"Well, Doc and Tess know." She poked at her falafel. "But the rest of them don't. Nor does my family."

He tilted his head. "Why not?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I was only, like, nineteen when I found out and it was hard to wrap my head around, so I didn't want them to know until I had. Then once I did. . . I don't know. Not an easy conversation to start. And I figured it'd make them look at me differently."

He took a bite of his burrito and chewed. "Thirty five."

After a moment of trying to figure out if that made any sense at all, she said, "What?"

"That's how long you get. Before the jokes about how young you look turns into suspicious stares and you have to go find a new identity. You might get less because you're young looking. On the other hand, now that botox and hair dye are things, you might get longer." He looked at her. "Though I guess your hair doesn't matter." 

"I'm not - I mean, I know I have to tell them eventually. It's not like I think they're going to burn me at the stake or something. I just wanted to pretend to be normal for a while."

He shrugged. "Just sharing knowledge. I think I'm the only person currently on earth who has any experience with managing quasi-immortality discreetly."

She chewed aggressively a moment. "How long have you been down here?"

"Seven hundred or so years. Just in time for the bubonic plague. It was _great_."

Wincing, she said, "Yeah, that sounds like an easy transition from Asgard."

"I was just a kid. Though I had to learn to stop being one fast." 

"I bet." She swiped the last of her pita through the last of her hummus. "I was sixteen when I got hit with the vibranium. A year later the government had me trying to fight the Avengers. It was a short learning curve."

"And then you became an Avenger."

"Yep. Best decision I ever made."

That made him smile. "You're not going to start a recruitment pitch, are you?"

"Nah. Any of us will tell you it's not the life for everyone. You've been doing fine for seven hundred years, you'll probably manage all right on your own."

"You don't long for a quieter life?"

Wasn't that an interesting question. "I don't know. This one's not as busy as you might think. Disasters and bad guys don't happen every day. There's a lot of sitting around. I've actually been thinking of signing up for some college classes."

"You should," he said emphatically. "It's a great use of time. I have 37 degrees myself."

She laughed a little, partially in surprise. "Oh, don't tell Ada."

"The little one? Why does she have Alfan spells carved into her suit?"

"Ada is. . . unique. She's Bruce Banner's adopted daughter and is a genius. I don't even know if that's the right word for it. From what the Grownups say she was this bright precocious little kid when Bruce met her mother and she started living in the Tower. And they all took her under her wing. By the time she hit puberty she was visiting Asgard on the regular and building things in Stark's lab. Now she builds stuff for us, in between getting a degree at Columbia."

"The. . .grownups?" He opened a can of coke and chugged half of it.

"Sorry, it's what we call the original team. We were mostly teenagers when they came to train us. It sort of stuck."

He chuckled. "I'm 1200 years old and I still don't feel like a grown up most days."

She chuckled. "You know, you don't look a day over 1000."

"The modern era has some great moisturizers," he said without missing a beat.

Kamala laughed out loud, just as Ada sauntered over, helmet and faceplate off. "Hey, the hotel is ready if you guys want to come catch a ride."

"Thanks," he said. "Much appreciated. We can take the rest of this with us," he added, gesturing to the food.

"I'll see if they have spare boxes," Kamala said. Getting to her feet she ran to the trucks and waited for them to finish blinking in surprise at her sudden appearance before asking for boxes and bags to pack it up with. They handed over a pile and she buzzed back to the table with her stash.

"You moving is very cool to watch," Raf said, helping her pack. "Almost looks like magic."

"You know what they say, any sufficiently advanced technology," she said lightly.

Ada was still hovering nearby and chimed in, "Given we're not entirely sure the source of vibranium, its enhancement powers, and why your body absorbed it rather than being poisoned by it, it's possible your powers are a form of Asgardian style magic."

Kamala shook her head, but smiled. "Thanks, Ada."

He held out his arm, looking actually Asgardian for a moment. "Ladies, after you."

A couple of vans and trucks brought them to the hotel in the heart of the city. Someone had gone to the jet and gotten the spare clothes they all kept stashed there. Sharon and Nat handed out room keys and go-bags and soon Kamala was standing in a very nice hotel room, with her leftovers, looking forward to her shower.

*

Raf spent the entire next working further search and rescue. He met pretty much all the rest of the Avengers, and found them to be very nice people. He even got to meet Tony Stark, who showed up mid morning to write checks. Apparently he had heart problems and that was all Doc would let him do. The team dynamic was fascinating.

It reminded him of a hundred different small villages he'd lived in over the centuries. Everyone in everyone's business, everyone coming together to help whomever was in need. It was a better way to live, if you asked him, than the isolated modern age.

But he was still going back to his house in the woods. He didn't want to be famous.

The freeways south of the city had been opened, and one of the teams' logistics people procured a car for him. Before he left, though, he went looking for Kamala.

She was dragging cars and large pieces of debris off the bridge in places that were too structurally fragile to handle excavation equipment. It was still a little surreal to see someone that little and young looking hauling around the things she could move.  
When she saw him she grinned and waved before blurring and appearing in front of him. "Hello."

"Hi. I came to tell you I'm heading out."

The smile might have faltered a little, but only just. "Well, thank you for all the help. It was nice of you."

He dug a piece of paper out of his pocket and held it out to her. "This is my contact info. God knows how phone numbers might shift around, but the address is solid. I've owned that property for a 120 years." Technically it was owned by a corporation that he was the sole owner of. That's how he handled all his money and property, because companies weren't expected to die. And _technically_ there was no actual paperwork because the deed had burned in 1906 with the rest of City Hall. "You'll be able to find me. If the world blew up, I'll be in the bomb shelter. Unless it was nuclear war. Then I'll be in New Zealand."

She studied the paper a moment. "Good to know." She tucked it away in her pocket and looked up at him. "Thank you," she said sincerely.

He looked at her for a moment, then spoke in Hindi in case her comms were on. "There's going to be a day when you wake up and think everyone you know is gone. But it won't be true, because you know me."

She blinked rapidly and he was a little afraid she would start to cry, but she just nodded and said, "Thank you," again. Then she dug in her pockets and handed him a card. "This is the phone number we only give people we like. If you need anything, we'll come help."

"Thank you," he said, tucking it into his pocket. He found himself smiling. "See you sometime in the next century at the very least."

"Sounds like a plan." She reached out and gave his arm a little pat. "Take care of yourself, Raf."

"You, too," he told her, and then he smiled one last time before heading back to his car.

His house was blessedly unharmed—though he wasn't surprised. It was built on bedrock, deep in the hills down the peninsula. Neither the '06 nor the '89 had so much as cracked the plaster.

He slept well. And then woke up in the morning to a yard full of reporters.

Opening his door just stirred them into a frenzy, all of them asking questions on top of each other. Who was he? How was he so strong? Why had he not shown himself before? Was he an Avenger? Was he going to _be_ and Avenger? They didn't even listen when he told them to go away and leave him alone.

A call to the police helped more, but only in getting them to move to the sidewalk.

"We can't really do anything as long as they stay out there," the officer who came out told him. "I mean, they'll probably get bored of you eventually."

Raf sighed. "Thank you. I appreciate you coming out here."

"Not a problem. I saw you on the bridge." He nodded. "Thanks for helping, I guessing you're regretting it now. But thanks."

"All I'm regretting is not wearing a face mask," he replied.

He laughed and left, giving the reporters one more warning on his way out.

They followed him to the grocery store. They followed him to the bank. And worse, they dug into his life. From how he'd structured his finances to piecing together the identities he used to have. They were like vultures.

It took a week for him to get fed up. The phone call from the IRS was the last straw. Apparently, they were quite eager to talk to him about his taxes and, if necessary, start two centuries worth of audits.

He called the phone number Kamala had given him. He hoped they had some connection with the government who could fix this before the FBI and INS got involved.

"I did not expect you to call this quickly," Kamala admitted when he finally reached her.

"Well. Apparently inquiring minds want to know. And they've dug it up. Pretty much everything about me." 

"Ouch, I'm sorry." She did sound sincerely upset for him. "I saw a few pictures of your house. It's very pretty."

"I've got the attention of the government now and I. . ." he sighed. "I need help."

"Well, government being dicks is Sharon's department. I can have FRIDAY transfer you over to her, but it might be worth it to have you come out here and go over stuff in person. It's gonna take her a while to get in touch with whoever she needs to be in touch with and you'll probably still be hounded while she's doing it."

"That's not the worst idea. I'm going to drive across, I'm concerned I'm on some sort of watch list now. I don't feel like being strip searched by the TSA."

"It'll be faster than going out in '48," she offered. "But I could ask about sending you a jet."

"I don't want to put you out." But that sounded kind of nice.

"It shouldn't be a problem. Let me talk to Sharon and see what we can cook up. Is this a good number for you?"

"Yes, they haven't hacked into it yet."

"All right. Hang in there a bit longer. I'll be in touch."

"You're a saint. Or whatever muslims call saints."

She laughed. "I'll accept prophet. Though my mother would probably scold me for being irreverent."

"Okay. I'm going to go wave a rifle around." He paused. "Don't worry. It hasn't worked since WW1."

"I look forward to seeing that on the news later tonight."

They sent a plane for him that evening. The reporters followed him all the way to the local airport where it landed. They weren't supposed to come out on the tarmac as he walked out to it, though one chased him anyway. It prompted the pilot of the jet to get on some sort of loudspeaker and yell, "I am armed."

Raf boarded the plane via the back gate, expecting a random pilot and instead finding Clint Barton. "So they sent the recruiter, eh?"

"They sent the person most likely to shoot paparazzi."

He laughed. "Well. Thank you. I appreciate the rescue."

"It's what we do. Have a seat," he added as the back gate closed up. "We'll be in New York in a couple hours."

Once they were in the air, Raf asked, "Do you actually recruit people, or is that an in-joke?"

Clint chuckled a little. "Mostly an in-joke. I recruited Nat a long time ago, when we were still SHIELD and superheroes were still comic book fodder. Ever since I've had a . . . soft spot for strays."

"I can't say stray is an inaccurate description for me."

"Well, I'll try not to grow too attached during the flight."

He laughed again. At least the Avengers were good people.


	3. Chapter 3

It was dark when they landed, the jet going into an opening right there in the side of the tower. The hanger was mostly empty, except for Kamala, standing on a thick yellow line. The back gate opened and Raf strolled out. When she saw him, she waved.

He was remarkably happy to see her. "Hi."

"Hi. I have been nominated as your tour guide."

That also made him remarkably happy. He hiked his bag over his shoulder. "Lead the way."

She turned smartly and lead him towards a bank of elevators. "Sharon's got calls into the IRS, FBI, INS and probably a bunch of other letters. She's hoping to have some answers for you tomorrow. For now I can show you your room and get you some dinner if you want."

"Yes, thank you. I'm kind of starving."

"We can order in or take out." The elevator doors slid open and they stepped in. "Got a craving? Name the cuisine, we can find it."

"In New York? I'm voting for pizza."

She laughed. "That might require a drive to Brooklyn, lest we earn the wrath of Steve and Bucky."

"I won't tell if you just want to order delivery. I'm good at keeping secrets."

"Sounds like a good plan." The door opened to a hallway that looked like a fancy hotels. "Let's get you settled and I can order before I do my prayers.”

“I’ve heard rumors of how nice it is in here,” he said, as she led him to a door that opened for them automatically.

"Yeah, it's pretty luxurious. After dinner I can show you the common room." They walked into the room, which he'd expected to be like a hotel room but was more like a high end apartment. "FRIDAY," Kamala said towards the ceiling. "This if Raf, he'll be staying with us a few days."

"Hello Raf," came an Irish accented voice.

"If you have any questions or need anything, she'll help you. She'll also tell you if anyone wants to talk to you or if you have phone calls.”

“I gotta tell you,” Raf said. “I love the future.”

"It is awesome," she agreed. "What do you like on your pizza?”

“I like all food,” he said. “So. . . as much as you’re willing to put on it?”

She paused a moment, then said, "Hey FRIDAY, can you order a large supreme and a large vegetarian from the pizza place I like?”

“I will,” the voice said. “And you have four minutes.”

"Thank you." She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. "I gotta run. I'll be done in like fifteen, twenty minutes. I can come back for you or FRIDAY can tell you how to get to my place.”

“Thanks,” he said, not entirely sure the appropriate thing to say. “Enjoy your praying.”

She grinned. "I will." She let herself out, leaving him alone in the plush apartment.

He looked up at the ceiling. “So. Are you a person?”

"I am an artificial intelligence originally developed by Tony Stark.”

He set his suitcase on the bed and unzipped it. “Why do you sound Irish?”

"Mr. Stark likes accents. His butler growing up - who helped raise him and whom he based his previous AI on - was English." A paused. "Dr. Lani Wilson has some fascinating theories on this.”

“About why Stark is obsessed with accents?”

"Among other things, yes.”

He opened one of the drawers and unpacked his clothes into it. He didn’t know how long he’d be here, but he wasn’t fond of living out of suitcases. “That’s the team shrink, right? I imagine she’d find me a fascinating subject.”

"Dr. Wilson is the team therapist, yes. Her office is on the fifty third floor.”

“Was that an invitation?”

"I would never presume. I just dispense information.”

“I applaud your deliberate vagueness. You’d have made a great House Steward.”

A brief pause, then, "Thank you.”

“There anything to drink stashed away in this place?”

"You will find the refrigerator stocked with basics. If you are requesting alcoholic drinks, there is a small assortment found in the common room, two floors up.”

“Unless some of it belongs to Thor, it won’t do any good.”

"We do not keep Asgardian liquor on hand, though we do have a bottle of Wakandan wine that the super soldiers in residence say is almost as good.”

“Oh, you tempt me.” He hadn’t been drunk in. . . actually he’d never been drunk. Today might not be a good day to find out what that’s like.

The AI didn't respond to that, which was just as well. Raf made his way to the kitchen to find "basics" included an assortment of cereals, two loafs of bread, and a full bowl of fruit. The fridge had a pitcher of filtered water, several sodas and bottled iced tea, as well as milk and juice. The Avengers were excellent hosts.

Raf made himself a snack, and waited for Kamala to come back.

*

Kamala rolled up her prayer rug and tucked it behind her couch before standing and stretching. 

"The pizza has arrived downstairs," FRIDAY told her.

"Excellent timing." She checked the pins holding her scarf in place and slipped her feet into shoes so she could run down and grab them. The delivery guy was familiar, so she added a couple bucks to the tip before heading back to the elevators and the guest floor that Raf was on. "Let him know I'm coming," she told Friday. To her delight, his door slid open just as she reached it.

"I come bearing pizza," she announced.

He grinned at her from where he was sitting at the kitchen table. “Smells good.”

She set the boxes on the table next to him. "I love this place. It's always super fast.”

“Can you get drunk?” he asked her as she opened the boxes.

She glanced up at him. "I wouldn't know, I don't drink.”

“Oh, of course not, I’m sorry.” He reached for a slice. “FRIDAY was telling me there is some sort of Wakanan drink upstairs that works on super soldiers. Was just curious—I’ve never been drunk.”

"Well, I'm certainly not going to pressure you into it. But I know it can get Steve and Bucky tipsy and they only get drunk on Adgardian stuff. So if you were interested, it'd be worth a try." She went to his kitchen and grabbed a bottle of iced tea before coming back and digging into her veggie pizza. "Or you could ask Ada to have someone send a bottle of mead down.”

“So she can talk to Asgard? From down here?”

"She can call down the Bifrost and, I don't know, request things from Heimdal? It's how we get Thor here if we need him.”

He looked at his plate for a moment. “It's funny. After I got stuck here, I called Heimdal. I screamed at the sky until my voice gave out.”

Kamala had the urge to reach over and hug him. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.

For a moment he munched on his pizza. “Thor told me he thought Loki put some sort of spell on me so I couldn’t be seen, because he didn’t want anyone to know what happened.”

"Is Loki the one who sent you here?”

“It was an accident. He wasn’t evil when we were kids. Or at least that's what I thought.”

"I don't know the whole story," she admitted. "But Thor was pretty surprised about the evil." She paused, chewing. "We have video of the Hulk slamming Loki into the floor. If you think that would be cathartic.”

He laughed. “Maybe. But the guy’s dead now, so. . .” He shrugged.

"Yeah. It's usually better to just let it go.”

“There is something to be said for always outliving your enemies.”

She really didn't like thinking that way. Clearly she was not as okay with the pseudo-immortality as she'd thought. "Why don't you want to go back?”

“I have no desire to spend the rest of my life as a servant.”

"You would have been a servant? Like, automatically?”

“Asgard is very rigid. It’s almost feudal. I mean, it’s not abusive. Servants are treated well. But everybody has their place, and you inherit your place from your parents. Occasionally people cross class lines due to outstanding military performance. . . but that’s pretty much it.”

"Huh." Thor didn't hang out with them much and Ada's view of Asgard was pretty narrow. "I can see why you'd like it here better.”

“Midgard is rough and wild and primitive, but it is free. I can live anywhere and be anything.”

She drank some of her tea and debated another slice. "Tell me about some of your past lives.”

He tilted his head, clearly considering. “I lived in the Ottoman empire in the 17th century. I worked as carpenter in Damascus. I had a wife for a couple of decades who was Muslim. She was one of the first people I told the truth to. She could have been a Hollywood makeup artist for the things she did to make me look like I was aging.”

Kamala didn't know why that delighted her so. "I'm glad you found people who could accept you.”

“I was so tired of always moving, always leaving. But while you can fake it with strangers, you can’t fake it with the person who sees you naked. The last time I’d told the truth before that people tried to burn me at the stake.”

"That's unpleasant." Screw it, she was having another slice. "Do you burn? I haven't experimented, but my skin kind of. . . reflects damage. I think if I was stabbed I'd bleed then heal, but like shrapnel and stuff doesn't leave a mark.”

“My skin isn’t flammable, but my hair is. Yes, that looked as hilarious as it sounds. Scared the shit out of those villagers, let me tell you.”

She couldn't help but laugh. "You must be in some seriously creepy legends.”

“Almost certainly. It’s not being worshiped as a god, but it’s something.”

"Hey, there are t-shirts with my face on them, there's all different kinds.”

“And I bet you haven’t paid for your own falafel or curry in a decade.”

"I try not to abuse it," she said. "Most of the time I try to be a normal person. If I'm in the middle of a mission and people insist, like in California, I'll take it. But on a day to day basis it seems wrong.”

“You’re a better person than me. I always take free food.” He shoved another slice in his mouth and had to chew before he could talk. “Which, by the way, is the most amazing thing about the modern era. So much food and all the time.”

"Even Steve and Bucky talk about that. They grew up in the Depression and say even after a couple decades it's amazing how much access to food we have.”

“I am pretty sure that starvation is the one thing that actually _will_ kill me, so famines always sucked a lot.”

"I have not experimented with that either," she admitted. "But given how much food I need to run, I'm guessing I could burn myself out if I didn't eat.”

He grinned widely. “I’ve never talked to someone who was. . . like me.”

"Me neither. Well, I guess the super soldiers are pretty similar. But they don't know about the immortality thing. And they all bleed like normal people.”

“Fiction never gets it right. Living for centuries.”

"I think it's hard for people to wrap their heads around," she said, speaking from experience. "It's big and scary and uncomfortable.”

“Immortals in fiction always know historical figures. Which is ridiculous. You are the most famous human I’ve even had a conversation with, by an order of magnitude.”

Thinking of herself as famous was pretty weird, too. "Just think, in a couple hundred years you can tell people about that time you had pizza with the muslim Avenger.”

“I hope we’ll still consume the occasional meal together in a couple hundred years.”

"I imagine we will," she said. "Like you said, you'll be the only person I know.”

“It’s better than nobody. Believe me.”

"I guess you've been lonely a lot.”

He cleared his throat and busied himself getting the last slice of his pizza. “That’s for sure.”

Kamala watched him a moment. "After I got better, when the government first recruited me, it was really lonely. They wouldn't let us interact with each other because the first team had bonded so much. They wanted us to be loyal to them, not each other. So I ate alone and spent all my time training alone. I didn't know about the lifespan back then, but I'm sure if I had the idea of an eternity of that would have driven me nuts.”

He looked back at her. “We are always surprised what we can survive.”

"That is practically the team motto.”

“It was worse when I was a kid and looked it. I moved a lot, people asked a lot of questions. Once I started to look like an adult, I could stay a little longer. Once I learned I could tell my wives the truth, and we could move together. . . it wasn’t so bad. Though watching someone you love age and die is never easy.”

She really didn't want to think about that. Or know what to say. She poked her pizza crust around before tossing it into the box. "I have time.”

“It’s better now, people live much longer. My last wife, Helen, made it to 94.”

"That's not bad. I'd be happy if I get that long with people.”

“She was an army nurse. The day I met her, she punched me in the face.”

Kamala's jaw dropped. "What did you _do_?”

“Some guy was hassling her, I tried to intervene. Her aim wasn’t quite the best, but she sure could pack a punch.”

She laughed brightly. "That's awesome. You should definitely talk to Cap.”

“I didn’t fight in the war. To easy to call attention to myself.”

"Were you at a club or something?”

“Public bus. Men have been the same kind of asshole for centuries.”

"Oh," she said, draining the last of her iced tea. "I could tell you stories.”

He stopped in the middle of closing up the empty boxes. “Don’t tell me they’re stupid enough to harass you?”

"I think most of the in-person people don't recognize me, but I get a lot of hate mail. A _lot_. The most of anyone else. There's one person in PR whose job it is to sort through it all. I send her flowers every month.”

“That’s horrible.” He shook his head, standing to throw the trash away. “I’m not much of a fighter, but I don’t really have to be to win. Not that you need me to punch people for you.”

"There's a line," she assured him. "It's all right. Well, not really, but I don't let it bother me. Just makes me want to be louder and more obvious.”

“Good for you. Really. It takes guts to stick your neck out like that.”

She shrugged, but she was smiling. "I figure if I'm making racist Islamaphobes mad, I'm doing something right.”

He watched her a moment. “You know what? I think you’re going to handle immortality just fine.”

It wasn't exactly a compliment she would have sought out. But it felt good all the same. "Thank you.”

“So I heard there was a tour?”

"Yes." She stood. "Come on."

He followed her out the door. “I assume there are super-secret parts you can’t show me.”

"Well, yeah, in the labs and stuff. And I'm sure Doc is working on some weird Frankenstein stuff. But for the most part we're pretty much an open book. Secrets have a way of blowing up in people's faces.”

“I can see how that’s a good policy. Despite having a life totally full of secrets.” He shrugged. “I suppose now I’m going to get to live honestly and openly.”

"Wether you like it or not," she agreed with a grin.

They rode the elevator up a few floors before the doors opened onto the common room. A mini bar lined one wall and a collection of old-fashioned pinball and arcade games sat in a corner. The rest of the room was dominated by couches, chairs and beanbags and a huge flatscreen TV. The TV was currently showing some sort of racing game that Nate and Cassie were playing. Kate was lounging on the couch with Lucky and Wyatt, reading a book. "Everyone behave," Kamala said. "I have a guest.”

Wyatt looked up. “Hey, it’s the dude from the bridge. Welcome to the circus.”

“Oh,” Raf said. “No. I’m just visiting.”

“That’s disappointing.”

"The IRS found him," Kamala explained, to a chorus of understanding groans. "He came to visit while Sharon tries to fix it."

"Welcome to a weekend of the circus," Kate said.

“We won’t even haze you,” Nate called.

“Thanks. I think.”

"Come sit," Cassie said. "Watch me kick his ass.”

“You wish, Lang.”

Raf looked down at Kamala and said, “Video games aren’t really my thing. I’m an old fart.”

"We also have board games," she offered. "And I don't know what's in the Grownups hang out area." She shrugged. "There's not much else to see. Ada's lab is in the penthouse and the training rooms are downstairs, if you want to beat up some robots.” 

He looked amused. “You fight robots?”

"There's punching bags and stuff, too. And we spar. But for training when I actually want to let loose, yeah, robots.”

“I haven’t thrown a punch I haven’t had to pull in at least a hundred years.”

"Robot mangling it is." She gave the others a little wave. "See you later, guys.”

There was a murmur and some waves, and then they left. Back in the elevator, he said, “Could you and I fight fair, you think?”

"Against each other?" She considered. "Probably. You certainly couldn't hurt me. Though I tend to pull punches when sparring.”

“Have you ever sparred with anyone you couldn’t hurt?”

"Only person I know for sure I can't hurt is the Hulk and he doesn't come out and play much.”

He wiggled his eyebrows. “I’m willing to risk a couple of broken ribs.”

Either the eyebrows or the idea of fighting him caused heat to rise in her cheeks. "Have you done a lot of fighting? I mean, I've been trained by Captain America.”

“If you knew anything about 19th century San Francisco, you wouldn’t have asked that.”

The elevator dinged as the doors slid open. Kamala shrugged and stepped out. "All right. Let's do this.”

“In all seriousness, I have been in a lot of wars. They were surprisingly hard to avoid during certain historical periods. Though I _was_ usually armed.”

She lead him down the hall to one of their sparring rooms. "It'll be interesting. I don't do a ton of hand-to-hand fighting in the field.”

“Just blow by people and bulldoze them?”

"Usually. I do a lot of recon and stealth stuff, too." She shoved open the door of the largest room and the lights came up automatically. "Though Kate and I occasionally do a trick with arrows we learned from the original Hawkeye and Pietro.”

There were mats on the floor, and he seemed to know to take his shoes off. “You shoot arrows?”

"I am the arrow." She curled her toes on the mats and stretched her arms. "Well, I run with it. It's more for trick arrows or if she doesn't have a clear line of sight.”

“Do you throw it, or stab them with it?”

"I sort of let it go and let momentum take it. Sometimes I embed it in something if it's an intimidation thing.”

He backed further onto the mat, and she followed. They circled each other. “If you did it with a spear you could skewer people. Like a kebab.”

"I like that. Very visceral.”

“Warfare before guns was very visceral. Literally. Intestines _everywhere_.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Ick."

“Also, you’re a small woman in a hijab, I can’t hit you first.”

"Hijab is an Arabic word, I mostly just call it a scarf." On the word "scarf" she darted forward and punched.

She hit him in the stomach, which was _very_ solid, but got him to grunt. He caught her arm and tried to flip her, so she spun him around rapidly a few times instead. He staggered with dizziness when she let go.

Bouncing on her toes, she gave him a moment to gather himself. She wasn't really sure how Asgardian physiology worked but she didn't want to get vomited on. This was supposed to be fun.

“Your strength is almost immaterial to your speed,” he said. “That’s new for me.” 

"I'm told I'm very difficult to fight. I'd offer to slow down, but. . . it's hard.”

“I still have superior mass.” He did probably have 8 inches and 75lbs on her. “The rest is just physics.” He blinked and she was gone. A heartbeat later she whacked him on the back of the head with what turned out to be a foam bat. He laughed as he turned around. “Hey, no weapons.”

"I'm sorry," she teased, dancing a little. "Rules need to be agreed on before combat begins.”

“You fight dirty. Got it.”

Still grinning, she tossed him the bat and ran to get another one. She managed to land two more hits before he anticipated her next move and parried her. It was a bit like hitting a brick wall and she lurched to a halt. He grabbed the bat and pulled on it, yanking her off balance. He tried to flip her, and she took off to slip away—only he managed to hang on. Thrown by the extra weight, she misjudged her stop and they crashed into a rack of weights, barbells spilling onto the floor.

She sat blinking in the middle of the chaos for a moment, then started to laugh. "You okay?" 

He sat up and rubbed his head. “You know you’ve had a good workout when you trashed the gym.”

"That's what I always say." She rolled to her feet without using her hands, bouncing a little before reaching down to help him up.

“Are you hungry? I’m starving.”

She laughed, because they'd just eaten two pizzas. But that had been almost an hour ago and she'd probably just burned a thousand calories. So she nodded, but said, "We have to clean this up first, though.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He started stacking the loose dumbells in his arms.

For a moment, she found herself distracted watching him. One would think she'd be immune to hot guys showing off impossible strength. But he was new and neither a mentor or pseudo-brother to her. So she allowed herself a moment of staring before bending to gather up her own stack.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings on this chapter for bi/pan phobia and discussions of death and infertility.

The US government was slow. Modern technology had not improved that much, so Raf ended up stuck waiting longer than he expected. And. . . he really kind of liked it. The Tower denizens reminded him of a large extended family. Of the villages he’d lived in for a lot of his time on earth (which tended to be large extended families, because everyone intermarried).

Villages, he’d found, reacted to strangers one of two ways. They either closed ranks and herded you out, or they welcomed you into their midst like your great-grandfather had been born there. This place was very much the latter. He hadn’t seen it in a century.

"And then I take back the Longest Road card you _thought_ you had claimed. And now I just need one more settlement to become Settler Supreme."

"I feel like we should take away a point for use of the phrase Settler Supreme," Kate told a still gloating Nate as she rolled the dice.

"I think I should get extra credit for coining it," he retorted.

If he told anyone that Avenger Saturday nights involved tabletop games no one would believe him. They got a little too intense for him to participate, but it was an excellent spectator sport.

Kate finished her turn and handed the dice to Kamala, who put them down, flipped over a bunch of cards, took something back from Nate that he'd just taken from Wyatt and said calmly, "I win."

There was a pause as the rest of them stared at what she'd done. Then Kate cursed in Mandarin and Nate stood up to stalk over to the bar.

Yes. This was just like his old villages. 

“You know, actual settlement wasn’t nearly that complicated,” Raf called.

"You didn't build roads by trading sheep for wood?" Kamala asked, packing the game back up.

“Wooden roads are terrible.” He came over to the table. “The premise is that you’re expanding into blank space, but every where settlers have gone, there has always been someone already there. There needs to be more war, murder, and theft.”

“I like you,” Wyatt said. Raf thought he was some sort of Native American. “Don’t forget importing mass epidemics of disease.”

“I came down here in the 14th century,” Raf replied. “I could never, ever forget epidemic disease.”

"Pretty sure a game involving slaughtering the native peoples in new and exotic ways would be a very different vibe," Kamala pointed out, settling the lid on the box.

"Still one we would play," Nate called from the bar.

“The PR on that would be terrible,” Eli said mildly. He didn’t play the board games much, though he seemed to listen to them with one ear while he read his book.

"I'd pitch it as educational."

The elevator doors slid open and Ada stalked in. After a brief scan of the room, she beelined in on Kamala and strode over to her, throwing herself at her and bawling.

Everyone froze. The room was full of men, and Kate, who was probably actually behind all the men in the touchy-feely department.

Kam patted Ada's back and guided her over to the couch. "What's the matter?" She mumbled something incomprehensible into her shoulder. "Her date was mean to her," Kamala translated.

"Just tell me who to shoot," Kate said immediately.

"I thought she was still dating whatshisname, the governor’s son,” Nate said, bringing over a fistful of napkins.

Kate winced. "Maybe I can't shoot him."

"They agreed to see other people while he does a year at the Sorbonne. 'Cause of the distance." They all turned to look at Eli, who shrugged. "She and Tess had a whole long rant about how monogamy isn't the natural state.”

“So there is someone for Kate to shoot?” Wyatt asked.

Kamala nudged Ada with the napkins and the blonde sat up a little, blowing her nose. "Murder is not the answer to all of life's problems."

"It is totally the answer to someone making you cry," Kate told her sincerely.

Ada sniffled. “You spend too much time with the Bartons.”

“Give me his name and email,” Nate said. “The least I can do is sign him up for 8,000 annoying mailing lists. I have a bot.”

"Her name is Rowan, and if I want technological revenge I'm more than capable."

Kamala rubbed Ada's back in small circles. "What did Rowan do?" she asked, calm and patient.

"She was just. . ." Ada sighed. "I mentioned I'd dated boys and she sort of laughed and said 'oh, we all have that phase' and I told her that no, it wasn't a phase, that I was pan and liked all genders and she got all defensive and told me I'd lied to her and lead her on and that I needed to be upfront with people because she didn't have time for some 'rich, trust fund girl who was experimenting.'" She did finger quotes on the last part and fresh tears started. "I really liked her, too. She's in my aeronautics class and she asks really smart questions and she does art with metalwork that's very evocative. And she just left me in the cafe without letting me explain or argue or anything." The last part dissolved into sobs and Kamala tugged her back into her shoulder.

“Yeah, I need my arrows.”

“Now this is a date that deserved the Bifrost.”

“Rowan is a stupid sounding name, anyway.”

“At least let me change her medical records to say she has herpes.”

They all spoke at once, nearly on top of each other.

Raf watched them banter in amusement for a moment, then looked back at Kamala, who had an arm around Ada and was talking to her quietly. He couldn't hear what she said, but it made Ada smile and nod a little. The rest of them were still debating the best revenge when Kamala tucked the other girl into the elevator back to her room.

As the doors closed, Raf heard Ada mutter, “And I don’t have a Trust Fund. Uncle Tony knows I can handle my own damn money.”

Everyone settled down at Kamala came back. "Rowan is the treasurer of the campus LGBTQA+ club," she told Nate. "I bet their members would love to know that she considers pan sexual people liars."

He grinned widely. "You're brilliant."

"I know.”

Raf waited until Kamala came over to him before leaning down. “I think I was in the woods too long, later I may need you to explain the lingo.”

"Pansexual means you're attracted to all genders." He blinked and she grinned. "There are people who identify as both traditional genders or none or consider their gender fluid. Ada says she's attracted to people, not genders and so considers herself pan. She did date someone before the governor's son who identified as genderfluid. Very sweet person, asked me a lot of thoughtful questions about being Muslim. I ran into the two of them at a coffee house while they were on a date.”

“Huh. I did not know there were words for either of those things.”

"Ada has taught me there's a word for just about anything.”

He glanced at the rest of them, who all seemed to have gone back to doing something, then asked Kamala, “You want to get some food?”

"I always want to go get some food," she informed him.

Theirs was a friendship built on food. This particular afternoon they got sushi.

“Dating sounds more complicated than it used to be.”

"I don't have a wide frame of reference," Kamala admitted, gesturing with her chopsticks. "But it certainly seems headache inducing. And even I can assure you that dating as a superhero is damn near impossible.”

“You should see relationships as an immortal.” She probably would some day. “I take it you don’t do it much?”

"Not really. The others are like brothers to me and people who aren't on the team. . ." She sighed and shrugged. "You can only ditch someone for world save so often before they get a little fed up. It's a way of life that's hard to understand. At least for guys my age.”

“I suppose you’ve got time to figure it out.”

"Yeah. I'm hoping it'll be easier as I look older. Guys with grown up jobs might understand better.”

“There are plenty of careers that are like that. Your stakes are just. . .higher.”

"Yeah." She smiled a little. "It's just a little discouraging how many of the old team intermarried.”

“I can’t help but notice your teams seems to be on a similar trajectory.”

"I had noticed." She studied their sushi plate and pinched some sashimi. "Though Tess and Wyatt were both newcomers. I don't see those of us who have known each other since puberty hooking up.”

“It’s tough,” he said after a moment. “Falling in love with some one you know you’ll outlive. But it’s very much worth it.”

She met his gaze, hewing thoughtfully. "How many times have you done it?" she asked after she'd swallowed.

“I’ve had six wives. Like Henry VIII. Though mine all died of natural causes.”

"Well, I should hope so. I'm not sure I could share sushi with someone who'd committed spousicide.”

“Consumption, Smallpox, Yellow Fever, Childbirth, Pneumonia, and Cancer.” At the end, Helen had asked him to turn the morphine up higher than her body could handle, and he’d done it. He didn’t know if that counted as ‘spousicide’ or not, but it felt too private to mention anyway.

"I'm very sorry," she said sincerely. Then after a respectful pause, "You can have children?" she asked.

He shook his head. “No, no. Well, I assume I could with an Asgardian woman, but I’ve never gotten a human woman pregnant. The baby wasn’t mine. She was my neighbor’s daughter and had gotten in trouble, from some shitstain who abandoned her. She needed protection for her child, I was tired of doing my own laundry. Seemed a fair trade.”

"That's sad," Kamala said, cupping her hands around her tea cup. "Did the baby live?”

He poked his rice with a chopstick. Why this wound still ached after a hundred and seventy years, he’d never know. “About six months.”

"I'm sorry," she said again, very softly. She looked down into her tea. "Doc doesn't think I'll be able to have babies.”

“I’m sorry,” he echoed back. Then he looked up at her. “Can you not carry them or just not conceive them?”

"Conception would be unlikely and she thinks I'd just miscarry. My body would reject the fetus." She shrugged. "It's theoretical, 'cause I'm not exactly trying. By Doc's pretty good about this stuff. I don't think she'd have told me if she wasn't pretty sure.”

“My fifth wife and I took in orphans. Since the industrial revolution, they’ve been more or less everywhere in cities. San Francisco was no exception.”

Kamala nodded. "I'm not there yet. But I think I'd like to do that. Adopt.”

“I avoided children for a long time—thought it would just make it harder as they grew. But it was nice, watching them go off into the world, knowing I wouldn’t be a burden on them.”

That made her smile a little. "I hadn't thought of it that way. That's a nice way to look at it.”

“That was Social Security, back in the day. Children. But it also meant children were stuck taking care of you. Whereas I could always take care of them. And make a positive mark on the world.”

"Are any of them still around?”

He shook his head. “This was in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. My sixth wife, Helen, never wanted children. I do keep track of all my grandchildren and their descendants. There are several hundred at their point.”

She was quiet a moment, maybe contemplating her own herd someday. Then she smiled again. "I'm glad I met you.”

That made him ridiculously happy. “I’m glad I met you, too.”

"Are you. . . do you think you're going to keep sticking around? When Sharon gets your legal stuff sorted?”

What’s that the million dollar question? “I really like it here,” he confessed. “Though, I mean, nobody has asked me to stay.”

"No one wants to push. You were pretty adamant about not being a superhero. You'd be more than welcome, but everyone's afraid if they ask you'll leave on principle.”

“I still don’t want to be a superhero. Because I’m not. I’m just a guy.” 

"We're all just guys," she told him. 

His eyes wandered over her in a way that was probably totally inappropriate, but he couldn’t help. “Some of you are definitely girls.”

She laughed and shook her head. "Well, according to Cassie 'dude' can apply to a man or a woman, so maybe we're all just dudes.”

“I also am not crazy about fighting.”

"There's really not that much fighting," she told him. "It's mostly what we did in San Francisco. Search and rescue. Helping people.”

“Being famous.”

"That's less fun. But you'll probably get less hate mail than some of us.”

He looked back at his plate. “You think I should do it?”

"I don't know. I don't think. . . I sort of fell into it. I mean, I could stop if I wanted to, but I like it. I like helping. And yeah, there's downsides. But it's worth it.”

He smiled. “And the company is good?”

"It is. We're family. All of us.”

That hit him like a punch in the stomach. He hadn’t had a family a long time. “Okay.”

She blinked. "Wait. Really?”

She looked so surprised he stumbled. “I mean, assuming I’m welcome.”

"Of course! No, of course you are." She grinned and clapped her hands. "Welcome to the Avengers."

She was adorable, and he couldn't help but smile. "Am I going to have a costume?"

"If you want. We mostly use vibranium woven tac gear of various styles, depending on our needs. Even my combat scarf has vibranium. But it you'd _like_ a cape. . ."

"No thank you. I have no desire to dress like Thor. "

"That's good, because Ada _really_ likes the movie The Incredibles and would lecture you."

He laughed out loud. "No capes."

"No capes," she agreed.

They finished their plates and paid, walking back to the Tower. "You don't have to come of fighting missions if you don't want to. I mean, we're all sort of aware there might be a day where basically everyone has to fight. But for little stuff, we could probably skip bringing you if if made you uncomfortable." She paused. "Thought Eli will feel better having an alternate tank on the roster."

He frowned at her. "Tank?"

"Oh, we're going to need to give you a crash course in nerd." She cleared her throat officiously. "In role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons or various video games in which you gather together a group of people to fight, they have different specialties. The one that's the heavy hitter - the warrior or berserker - is often referred to as the tank."

"Uh. How are _you_ not one?"

"I'm a secondary tank. I can't pull aggro the way Eli can. I'm also usually used for my speed, which I think makes me more DPS. It's complicated."

Raf shook his head. "Clearly."

She smiled and bumped his arm lightly. "We'll catch you up."

"There's probably an avalanche of stuff I need to learn. I've been kind of hiding up in the hills avoiding a lot of modern life."

"You really should talk to Steve and Bucky. They've been there done that."

"I probably should talk to Thor again at some point." People were probably going to call him New Thor.

"Ada will be happy to arrange that."

*

Every other Saturday Kamala borrowed a car and drove out to New Jersey to see her family. Her mother would probably prefer it be every Saturday. Or possibly every day, but Kamala had worked hard to establish good boundaries with her parents and she sure as hell wasn't backing down now. With said boundaries in place, she usually enjoyed the visits. She helped her mom cook and she and her brother took turns changing lightbulbs or oiling squeaky hinges or whatever other manual labor their father dug up for them. She was one of the only teammates with a typical nuclear family and she tried to appreciate them, even if they were occasionally frustrating.

Of course, her brother's recent announcement was not going to help the frustration.

"My brother's getting married," she told the girls the next night on their monthly mani-pedi night. Kate was hosting and had made some truly delicious dumplings and stir fry, with, Kamala suspected, a little help from Nat Barton.

“Is there going to be an ugly bridesmaids dress in it for you?” Cassie asked.

"Probably not. His girlfriend has really nice taste. She also has a couple sisters, so I don't know if I'll make the bridesmaid cut.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a bridesmaid,” Cassie replied, spearing a dumpling. Then she very pointedly added, “Tess.”

Tess rolled her eyes. She and Eli had gotten engaged a few months ago, but wanted to keep the ceremony small."I'm sure someone will give you a chance at some point.”

“Don’t even look in my direction,” Kate said immediately. Cassie stuck out her tongue.

"If I ever get married I promise you can be a bridesmaid," Kamala told her solemnly.

“Thank you. Now tell me why your brother getting married is causing drama.”

"It's not drama per se," she said. "I mean, mom will probably get a little nutty before it's all over. My future sister-in-law is Muslim, so there won't be a problem. I just. . . I don't know. I feel like it's going to cause her to start pestering me about finding someone and that's just exhausting.”

“You don’t need a husband,” Ada said. “You’re busy saving the world.”

"Thank you." Most of the time, Kamala felt that way, too. She was busy, she loved her work. But she was also lonely. And watching her friends find love and getting engaged. . . well, sometimes that hurt. "At least during the wedding planning she'll probably be easily distractible.”

“Maybe they’ll have kids quickly,” Tess offered. “Grandbabies are super distracting.”

"That is a good point. That'd buy me at least a year.”

There was a pause, and then Kate quietly asked, “Kam? Do you _want_ to find someone?”

She poked at her dumpling. "You've been a lot more empathetic since you hooked up with Wyatt. I'm not sure what I feel about it.”

“So that’s a yes.” She was, of course, still Kate.

"Yes," she mumbled. There was a round of sympathetic noises which made her sigh. "I don't want your pity.”

“It’s worse than pity,” Kate told her. “They want to help.”

She held out a finger. "There will be no setting me up. If I wanted a long series of awkward blind dates I'd call my mother.”

“Pfft. Blind dates,” Ada scoffed. “We could do it all online.”

"I suppose that's. . . better.”

“It would do you good to get laid,” Ada added.

Tess reached over and smacked her on the arm while Kamala covered her face with a hand. "I'm not just going to sleep with some guy.”

Ada made what at this point could really only be described as the Ada Noise, though it was identical to one also made by Ada’s mother. “There are ways to get laid without violating your rules.”

"I'm not interested in trying to circumnavigate my deeply held religious beliefs," Kamala told her. "I respect your desire to have sex before marriage, respect my wish not to.”

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful. I just mean. . . if there’s a border, wherever that border is for you personally, why not color all the way to it? It makes the lines themselves look that much stronger.”

"I don't think you would consider my borders 'getting laid.'"

Tess tilted her head. "I had a friend back home that did anal and insisted she was still a virgin."

"See?" Kamala gestured at her. "I don't want to get into the semantics of what is and is not sex. I mean, I've kissed boys, but anything beyond that is just. . . uncomfortable. Certainly anything that leads to an orgasm is off the table.”

“It’s a tough sell,” Cassie said gently. “To a guy.”

"Not to every guy," Kate piped up. "I mean, my reasons were different, but Wyatt and I stuck at middle school make-out session for a very long time.”

“I’m not saying there aren’t some of them out there.”

She sighed deeply. "Maybe I should let my mother start setting me up again."

"No."

"No."

" _No_."

Their unison amused her.

"Is there a dating website for Muslims?" Kate asked. "Like J-date?"

"I think that's called your relatives," Kamala admitted. She sighed again. "Maybe I should just get a bunch of cats and accept my fate."

"I could make you a robot boyfriend," Ada offered. 

Kamala opened her mouth, then paused. "I wonder if robots count."

"It would be more of a sexless marriage kind of situation," Ada replied. "I mean, I can make it a penis and stick it on, but a) that's kind of creepy and b) lust is hormone driven and impossible for AIs to generate. Many of the base feelings are. If you don't feel lust, sex is about as exciting as taking a shit." She shrugged. "Vision and I have _absolutely_ no boundaries."

"I did _not_ need to know that," Cassie said, getting up to raid the fridge.

"Thank you, Ada," Kamala said. "I will keep the offer in mind."

"It's way easier for boys to make sexbots," she replied. "Mostly they just need a hole or two to fuck."

"I can see how that would be simpler from a design perspective."

Cassie returned, and held out a bag of chocolate chips. "No sex, no booze, and no bacon. All I've got left is this."

Holding out her hand, Kamala assured her, "Chocolate solves many things."

Cassie dumped some in her palm, and climbed back on the couch. "I think there's something romantic about it. Only being with one man. Not having your first time be in the back of some boy's uncle's rusty PT Cruiser."

"That's weirdly specific," Ada said.

"I was in the back of a rusty Dodge truck," Tess told her brightly. "I'm not sure if that's better or not."

"Do they not have hotels in bumfuck, Kentucky?" Kate asked.

"The closest one was a Red Roof Inn run by my mother's best friend's sister. I'd have been ratted out and dragged back home before our pants got off."

"The PT Cruiser was a small SUV, usually classed as light trucks by the DMV, made by Chrysler, which also makes Dodge. So basically the same, depending on model year," Ada said. "And you people are sad, I was in my own bed."

Kate held a hand out for a high five. "Was it here? 'Cause I don't imagine your parents were as lackadaisical about boys in your room as mine were."

She made a face. "It was in Wakanda, I was 14. My parents weren't home—though they're pretty cool. Wakanda has very different mores about sex and my Dad gets all anthropologist-y about meshing with the local culture. And I date boys, girls, whatever. It's kinda hard to police that."

"I would like to buy whoever had the nerve to successfully deflower the Hulk's little girl a very large drink," Kamala said, tossing a few chips in her mouth.

"They raise them brave over there."

"Clearly."

"There is something to be said for doing it when you're older," Kate said. "Not even just the bed thing. Wyatt is a lot more fun than the equally clueless teenagers I dated."

"Experience does make a difference," Tess agreed.

"Hang on," Cassie said. "Well, I agree, but back up. . . how do you _un_ successfully deflower someone?"

Kamala blinked. "Admittedly, I'm speaking only theoretically. But I would think the possibility of the Hulk walking in on your would be the sort of thing to cause performance issues." She gestured. "Granted, that probably only applies if said deflowerer had a penis."

"He did have one," Ada said. "Though the deflowering was not technically penis-based, at that time."

Cassie clapped her hands. "And we're back to what counts are sex. I love when our conversations come full circle."

"Sex is an orgasm—or an attempt at an orgasm—provided by another person," Ada replied.

"So all orgasms are off the table?" Tess asked Kamala.

Oh, she'd really hoped they'd moved off of her with this discussion. Still, maybe it was good to analyze it a little. She had a long life ahead of her. At some point she was going to need to figure out how the rules and customs she'd been raised with meshed with her pseudo-immortality. "If I'm honest, I don't know that I'm going to make it to the wedding night. But I would need to be pretty darn sure a wedding night was happening. I need commitment and surety in the man I was with. I don't want to dangle sex like some sort of prize. But I also want to know it's not the only important thing. Bad sex can be improved. Mental and emotional connection has to come first."

"Well, maybe that's what getting laid is to you," Ada said. "Having a conversation until dawn, the kind that makes you feel like how you see the world has been changed by it."

It was a little bit embarrassing how swiftly her brain produced an image of Raf at that description. She was very grateful she was too dark skinned for blushes to be obvious.


	5. Chapter 5

Becoming an Avenger involved a lot of paperwork. So much paperwork Raf was wondering if he’d have done better taking on the IRS himself.

“I’m sorry,” Darcy Bennett said. “Spell that again?”

“H-R-A-F-N-S-V-A-T-R.”

She shook her head. “That’s really your first name?”

“I have no reason to lie about this.”

Leaning back, she peered at the paper again. "That's a hell of a name. I thought Thor and Heimdall were weird names.”

“In Norway they’d probably think Darcy is a weird name,” he replied.

"Touché. Shall we agree to leave birthdate blank?”

“That’s probably for the best.”

"Got it. Sharon's working on Social Security." She muttered to herself and scribbled a few more things. "Okay, fill in your bank information for direct deposit and I will give you your handbook and show you to your apartment.”

“What’s wrong with the one I’m currently in?”

She blinked. "Nothing. The team ones are a little bigger and nicer. And all on the same floor. But if you want to stay where you are, that's fine.”

“I’m always up for nicer digs.”

“Well, there we go. Once we get your paperwork settled, we’ll make arrangements for your trip to Wakanda.”

Now _that_ got his attention. “I’m sorry, what?” 

"Your trip to Wakanda. To meet the rest of the gang. Stark's main labs are there so any kind of equipment comes from there. Including body armor. I know you're pretty impervious, but even Kam wears some vibranium armor." Her eyes lit up. "Are you gonna get a cape?”

“No, and I can’t travel. I don’t have a passport.” That was not the only reason, but it was part of why he’d been sort of stuck in the US for so many decades.

Darcy waved a hand. "Don't need one. You fly on our jet and land in Wakanda. We have a special arrangement with them.”

“Am I going alone?”

"Nah, Kam's due for her semi-annual barrage of tests by the Wakandan vibranium experts, so she'll tag along. Ada's got exams so she's skipping it."

That. . . made him way happier than he wanted to admit in front of Darcy. "Then I guess I'm going to Wakanda."

"Try the melon, it's scrumptious."

"Melon. Got it."

They finished the paperwork and she handed him a thick book with the Avenger's logo on the front. Then they took the elevator up to the housing floors. The team floors were above the one he had been staying on, which much fewer doors in the hall way. "Kate," Darcy said, pointing to a door. "Wyatt," she added, pointing across the hall. She did so as they walked, before stopping at a door next to Peter's and across from Eli and Tess. "And this will be you."

"Thanks. How many spare Avenger apartments do you have?"

"When we first renovated the building I kept four open ones," she told him. "Apartment shuffling was a big headache for Avengers 1.0. We lost two when Tess and Wyatt moved in, then Tess and Eli moved in together so there were three and now you're moving into her old place, so I'm back to two again.”

“Been a long time since I had neighbors,” he murmured, half to himself. “Thank you, Darcy.”

"You're welcome. You've been here long enough to know the drill, but if you need anything tell FRIDAY or me. I have to check in with Kamala, but you'll probably be heading to Wakanda within the week.”

“I’ll keep my bags packed.”  
She gave him a little salute and left him, heading back towards the elevators. She passed Eli and Tess on the way, exchanging waves with them as she did.

"Hey," Tess said when she saw Raf. "All official now?”

“All I need is my outfit.”

"Is there going to be a cape?" she teased. 

“I’m starting to think I should get one just to be a pain in the ass.”

She grinned and Eli shook his head. "Welcome aboard, man. Officially.”

A week later, almost on the nose, he and Kamala boarded a jet in the weird little hangar they had in the middle of the tower. Wyatt was flying. Kamala was almost vibrating in her seat. "I can't wait to show you Wakanda. It's awesome. And the rest of the gang is neat. Wanda's a little stand offish until she gets to know you. But you'll like Petey, he's an asshole.”

“Who’s Petey?”

"Pietro Maximoff," she explained. "He can't say my name right, with the accent. It comes out rhyming with Pamela. So we agreed I can call him by the wrong name. We already had a Peter, so I went with Petey. His wife finds it hilarious." She bounced. "Oh, you'll like Ora, too. She speaks a bunch of languages.”

“Don’t suppose any of them are old Norse?”

"I don't know, but I'd bet a lot of money one of them is current Norse, so maybe you can work something out."

He leaned back in his chair. "It will have to do."

Something in his tone seemed to get her attention, settle her a little. "You miss speaking it?"

"If you never speak a language, you forget how." He felt wistful in a way he couldn't entirely explain.

She paused. "Have you forgotten?"

"I didn't think I had, but then when I first found Thor again, a decade or so ago, I could barely understand him."

He watched her fidget a little. He'd noticed it was hard for her to sit still sometimes. He imagined spending the better part of a day in a plane, even a nice one like this, was stressful.

Then, to his surprise, she reached over and curled her fingers around his hand, squeezing lightly. "I'm sorry. We'll ask Ora. It's possible she had Thor teach it to her. She does that, when she meets people who know a language she doesn't."

He held onto her hand. One of the worst things after Helen died was the loss of regular touch. Strangers and casual friends didn't touch each other as much nowadays, compared to other places and times he'd lived. It had been fourteen years since anyone had held his hand. "Thank you."

"Hey, if she does know it, maybe she can teach me. Then we can speak in Norse and Urdu and confuse everyone."

Raf laughed. "I'll take you up on that."

She grinned in return. "I'm looking forward to this trip."

"Me too."

It was a long flight. She coaxed him into playing some card games. They ate some of the MREs that were kept stocked on the jet. Kamala got noticeably more restless, foot jiggling as she sat and tried to read. The only time he saw her still was when she tucked herself in a corner to do her prayers, after a brief debate with Wyatt about where, exactly Mecca was in relation to them.

By the time they landed, she seemed to be nearly vibrating. From the cockpit Wyatt called, "Hey, you wait until I have the gate down all the way this time. I don't need a broken plane again."

She shifted from foot to foot. "You put one little hole in a ramp and they never let you forget it."

The ramp hit tarmac with a little scraping thump and she was gone. From outside he heard a man's voice shouting and Kamala yell, "Petey!"

By the time Raf got out there, there was nothing but a blue tinted blur streaking off into the distance. There was a hispanic woman with two dark haired little girls standing there, watching. He assumed that was Ora Maximoff. 

She turned and smiled when he reached the end of the ramp, sticking out her hand. "You must be Raf. I'm Ora. This is Agata and Inez."

"Hi," he said.

"They'll be back in a minute. They do this."

Raf laughed. "No problem. She was practically bouncing off the walls."

"It's hard for them, being confined. The world moves very slowly and when they can't burn off some energy it's even worse." She lifted a shoulder. "At least, that's what Pietro says."

"When she's done she's going to be hungry," he said, because apparently he knew that about her.

Ora's brows went up a little but she didn't comment. "We have a feast being prepared back at the house. Wanda's been making the kitchen smell delicious all day."

"Excellent," he said. "I out-eat the supersoldiers."

"You'll fit in just fine here."

There was a gust of wind and Kamala was standing next to him, bright eyed and wind blown. A tall, lanky man with a mop of curls was on her other side. "Raf, this is Pietro. Petey, this is Raf, our newest recruit."

Pietro stuck out a hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," he said while they shook. The two girls flung themselves at Kamala, and she crouched to hug them.

She stood with one under each arm and twirled them around as they squealed.

Wyatt appeared at the base of the ramp, depositing Kamala's bags next to Raf. "Good to go."

Pietro obligingly reached down for one of the bags. "Come on. We got a car waiting."

The car took them to a sprawling house well outside of the city. The drive was long, but the land was flat so you could see the house for a while before they arrived. He supposed it wasn't surprising a guy that ran that fast liked having a very, very big yard. There were three children running around outside, and the Maximoff girls exploded out of the car to run and fetch them, and then the whole herd surrounded Kamala like a swarm. Raf watched and smiled. He'd noticed the kids who lived in the Tower—there were a dozen of them, from middle school on down—all seemed to adore her as well.

"Oh my gosh, Esther! You're so big!" she told one girl who came up to her shoulder, making her grin.

"What about me?" asked a little boy who looked strikingly similar.

"You look exactly the same," Kamala informed him solemnly, earning her a scowl. She cocked her head suddenly, grinning. "I'll see you guys at dinner. Your mama is insisting I come in and meet the babies."

Ora shooed them off. "Go play while there's still daylight."

They went inside. The house had a lot of glass, and the front hall was wide and floored with stone. A voice not his own echoed in his head. _Take off your shoes_. Raf was so startled he dropped his bag and spun in a circle. "What—?"

"Wanda!" Pietro called. "Don't scare the newbie."

Kamala caught Raf's arm. "Wanda's telepathic. She forgets sometimes that other people aren't."

"Can she read my mind?" he asked, feeling a little alarmed.

"No, no," she assured him. "She doesn't go digging without permission. She might hear anything you think. . . loudly. But she says that's usually pretty benign stuff."

A woman appeared at the other end of the room, with a lot of hair piled into a messy bun and a toddler on each hip. "You are Asgardian," she said in a lilting accent that matched Pietro's. "I won't hear anything unless I look very hard. I'm impressed you heard me, I only get Thor about half the time and I've known him many years."

Kamala grinned and beelined over to her. "Babies!"

The woman - he assumed it was Wanda - grinned. "Look, it's Auntie Kam, from the computer."

One of the toddlers hid his face in his mother's shoulder, but the other squealed and reached for Kam, who happily took him and propped him on her hip before hugging Wanda. "It's good to see you, Kamala." She didn't say it quite right, the second syllable dragged out a little long, but it was close. When they parted she looked back at Raf. "I'm sorry for startling you. I'm Wanda Taschengregger. It's nice to put a face to the name, Kam's been telling us all about you."

"Not that much," she grumbled, tossing the little boy in the air, to squeals of delight.

"There's been plenty on the news, too," he offered.

Wanda wrinkled her nose. "I avoid the news." She waved a free hand. "Come in, come in. Leave your shoes by the bench and Pietro can show you where you're sleeping. And then dinner is ready."

"Thank you," he said. He took off his shoes along with the rest of them, and then followed their host upstairs. "So who's house is this?" he asked.

"Ours," Pietro said. "Ora and I share it with Wanda and her husband Zev. And we keep some guest rooms open for visitors." He pointed to the western wall. "The Banners live in a house over there. Same property."

"I know it's weird," Ora said from behind them. "But it works."

Raf turned a little. "Not weird at all. The modern western obsession with the lone nuclear family is what's weird. This is more how most people have lived, most of my life. Tiny clustered villages, farmsteads with longhouses, three generations of a family and all their livestock under one roof. . .that kind of thing."

"We don't have livestock," Pietro said without missing a beat. "Despite how often it _sounds_ like a herd of cattle host regular stampedes."

"Violet has bees," Ora reminded him and he made a gesture of defeat.

"This is your room," he told Raf, pushing open a door. "Kamala you're in the usual place and Wyatt is at the end of the hall."

He peeked in to find a cozy bedroom decorated in warm reds and cool greys. It had a heavy wooden bed, matching nightstand and dresser and several little accents to make it feel homey. Through a door on the far wall he could see an attached bath.

"I once lived with six people and a goat in a space about this big," he commented.

"Oh for goodness sakes," Kamala said, with a head shake that was oddly indulgent.

"Please," Pietro said. "No goats in the house."

"Thank you," he said. "It's a lovely room."

"You're welcome. Wanda decorated it. Though you're sharing a bathroom with Kam, so you may not be thanking me later."

"Bite me, Maximoff," she said pleasantly, slipping past him to head to her room.

Pietro gestured. "You see? Kids today. No manners, no respect."

Ora pushed her husband out the door. "We'll see you at dinner."

Raf dumped his bags by the bed and took a moment to open the window, letting in a warm, tropical scented breeze. He could hear Kamala humming to herself through their connecting bathroom and risked a glimpse through the door. The door at the other end of the bath was open a crack, enough he could see another bedroom decorated in blue and gold, and a little blur of motion darting around as she unpacked. He should be unpacking, but he stopped to watch instead. The way she moved was mesmerizing.

The door opened wider and the blur darted in and out of the bathroom, shampoo and toothpaste appearing on the counter. On her third trip in she apparently noticed him because she stopped, appearing as if out of thin air, and smiled shyly. "Hi."

He felt his unfortunately very pale skin flush. "Hi. Sorry." There was no way to hide that he'd been staring.

Her fingers drummed the counter. "You like watching me run?"

Raf had been alive way to long to be coy. "Yes."

She went still, a rarity for her. Glancing away, she cleared her throat. "I like you."

He drew in a slow breath. "I like you, too. But I figured it was. . .I mean I'm not. . ." He gestured at her headscarf, not sure why he had suddenly lost his ability to speak like a normal person. 

"I know. That does. . . complicate things. But I'm not exactly normal." Meeting his gaze again she added, "You said you had a Muslim wife before, so I'm not totally starting from scratch."

"Money convinced a lot of people to look away. But that was cultural. You can't look away from your own beliefs."

She twisted her fingers together. "I'm not saying my mother would be super happy if I brought a six foot tall blonde guy home. But I'd figured for a while now I might not . . . end up with a Muslim man. My beliefs are mine. His can be his." She shrugged and sighed. "We don't have to figure it out now. It was a long flight and I'm sure we're both hungry. I just wanted to say it. Out loud. Keeping it in didn't feel right anymore.”

“I feel like I should warn you I haven’t been on a date since WWII. I don’t even know how people do it these days.”

"As far as I can tell it's mostly sharing meals and talking. Which is kind of what we already do." She offered him a shy little smile. "Besides, I might be up for a little 1940s style romance.”

He smiled wryly. “It was mostly sharing meals and talking.”

"Wow, we are so good at dating.”

He laughed. “I’ll take it over bribery and endless negotiations with your male relatives, which is how it’s been in the past. Fatima’s father behaved like a crooked merchant at a Samarkand silk stall.”

She smiled at the description. "Dad is not a good negotiator. He's almost jolly. Mom on the other hand. . .”

“I had to pay off at least twenty relatives. Some of them I’m not even sure were really relatives, just neighbors taking advantage of the fact that I couldn’t understand their particular dialect of Farsi. Finally she told her mother she feared she might be pregnant—total lie—and her father gave in. After punching me in the face, which unfortunately broke _his_ hand.”

Kamala was laughing now, with enough exuberance he wondered if she had relatives she could see in various roles. "We could probably stick with meals and conversation," she told him. "Maybe with some hand holding.”

Since she’d mentioned it, he reached out for her hand. When she offered it, he lifted it up and kissed her knuckles. “Okay.”

She grinned and went up on her toes. He had the distinct impression she might be blushing. "Okay."


	6. Chapter 6

When Pietro was a little boy, according to his mother, he was never still. That hadn't changed much as he grew. It suited him that he lived in a house that was never still either. Seven children generated a certain steady hum of noise and activity. The kids all spoke sign language as often as not, but that did nothing for the shrieking and banging and running feet. 

The Banners came over for dinner, which made it nine children, and one teenager who spent the entire meal interrogating Raf about some historical something-or-other. It was controlled chaos, but the best kind.

After dinner, Kamala ran around the yard with the younger kids, giving Wanda's younger twins turns riding on her back. Pietro helped load the dishwasher and mopped the kitchen floor, then joined the menfolk on the porch with a bottle of Wakandan liquor.

He dangled a glass in front of Raf. "Thor says it tastes like Alfan rum."

Raf reached for it. "I've never had any of that. I was a kid when I landed here."

"Ah. Well, it tastes like very good whiskey with a little bit of honey in it."

"And sufficient quantities will get you tipsy," Zev's computer said. Everyone in the house could speak to him in ASL, and he had an interpreter at work. But for things like this, when they had house guests who couldn't understand, he used a computer interpreter that Stark had built. Over the years it had been tweaked and modified - as all Stark inventions were - and the robotic voice replaced by one Wanda had chosen to sound most like Zev's mental voice. 

Raf laughed. "You getting me drunk so you can beat me up?"

"We are simply gracious hosts," Pietro said. "Also, we have a Hulk, we don't need to get you drunk." He gave Raf a sidelong glance. "Do I have a _reason_ to beat you up?"

Raf stared back at him. "Your sister is a telepath."

"She can't read you without being rude, Mr. Asgardian-Weird-Physiology-Person."

"I assumed she could read Kam. I'm not a telepath myself, but something tells me she's a loud thinker."

"This is the stupidest game of chicken I've ever seen," Wyatt said, sipping his drink.

That was probably a good point. If any of the women Pietro lived with were here they'd be smacking him on the back of the head. He looked out at the kids playing and the blur that was Kamala, popping in and out at random spots, Dimitri shrieking happily on her back. "She can take care of herself," he said finally. "If you deserve it."

Raf smiled. "That I don't doubt."

Kamala appeared before them and held Dimitri out to Zev. "He says only Daddy takes him to potty."

Zev signed something at the toddler, who giggled. Then he waved and took the kid inside. On the other side of Raf, Wyatt stood. "I know it's early, but my body thinks it's the middle of the night and I have to fly in the morning. Goodnight, all."

Pietro lifted his glass and the other two said goodnight. Then Kamala plopped into the spot he'd vacated. "I should get to bed, too. I have tests in the morning."

Raf turned and held out his glass to show her. "They gave me some Wakandan booze."

She smiled, nose wrinkling a bit. "How is it?"

He grinned. "Weird tasting."

"You really know how to sell liquor to us teetotalers."

Pietro watched the banter out the corner of his eye. Kamala had come to Wakanda for the first time as a nervous, almost shy eighteen year old. She'd gotten her powers suddenly, and from trauma, something he and Wanda had understood all to well. She wasn't as fast as him, but she was physically stronger, which made up for it. She hadn't known how to pace herself, how to use the speed with restraint. How to handle the way the rest of the world dragged behind.

He'd taught her best as her could, taking her for long runs in the Wakandan jungle. They'd gone out to the savannah and got full out, racing gazelles and at least one cheetah. That was the first time he'd seen her grin. He had been a little surprised to find he had room in his heart for another sister.

_Leave then alone. She's so happy she's glowing._ Speaking of sisters.

He got up and left them on the porch, fairly certain they wouldn't notice his absence, and found Wanda in the kitchen, packing lunches for the next morning. "This is worse than when you met Zev," he told her.

"No it's not. You haven't even been accidentally flashed yet."

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he went to find more liquor. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that. At least not in this house."

"I believe she will proceed differently than I did, somewhat. Certainly much different than you." His marriage had started as a one-night stand. Wanda still liked to tease him about it.

That was true. Pietro was pretty firmly in the atheist camp at this point, but he knew Kam's beliefs were important to her. "That's good. I'm probably too old to beat him up, anyway."

"I will never be too old to do so," she replied with a grin. Then she looked serious. "She needs someone who will be here when we're all gone."

His shoulders slumped. "Do you think she likes him just because of that?"

"No," she replied. "But I think it's part of why she's willing to let herself."

That also reminded him, a bit, of Wanda. She'd worried about finding someone who could handle her messy baggage of powers. When Zev had shown up in her life, it had been an immediate connection. "I don't suppose you could speak to her as women do. About it?"

"About relationships?"

"Dating as a superhero is a unique and difficult thing. None of the littles have her kind of powers. Not the girls anyway."

Wanda tilted her head. "It is only her and I, isn't it?"

He did a quick run down to be sure, but nodded. "Everyone's had hard lives, to one extent or another. But the others with powers are all men."

"It is very different," she agreed.

The door opened and the kids filed in, laughing and shrieking up the stairs. He listened to the clatter with a smile as Kam poked her head in the kitchen. "Heading to bed. I'll see you in the morning."

"I run at dawn," he told her.

"I'll set an alarm but I promise nothing."

He grinned at her. "Good night, Kam." She waved brightly and he listened to her steps on the stairs.

"I'll find some time to chat with her," Wanda promised.

"Thank you." He leaned over to kiss the top of her head. "I'm going to go find my wife."

"Goodnight, Pietro."

*

Kam did manage to drag herself out of bed at dawn to run with Pietro, mainly because she'd missed running in the jungle and it was better with company. Then it was time for a big breakfast, courtesy of Pietro and Ora.

"Are you running to the labs for your tests?" Wanda asked as they ate.

She shook her head. "No, I need to borrow a car. I have orders to bring Raf in to meet Stark."

"I didn't know he was in town," Pietro said. He looked over at his wife. "The twins will be over soon enough to get the chaos into double digits."

"He said he'd fly in to outfit the new recruit." Who hadn't come down for breakfast yet. "I should go wake him or I'll be late."

"There's a bucket under the sink if you want to dump cold water on him," he said.

Kam grinned, bouncing to her feet. "I'll keep it in mind." She took one more swig of coffee, then darted upstairs, knocking on Raf's door. "You awake?"

From inside she heard a very grumbly sounding, "No."

She had not known a voice could be sexy till she met Raf. His sleepy voice was damn near illegal. "There's food and coffee downstairs," she offered in a sing song. "Then we get to go to the palace labs."

There was more grumbling, then a moment later he yanked the door open. He was not wearing a shirt. "Food?"

Her face flushed and she glanced away, then decided to focus on his face. She had seen shirtless men before. She was not a swooning Victorian lass, she could handle this. "Yes. Food. Lots of food. Downstairs."

And now he had noticed she was flustered, based on his grin. "Food is good."

"Yes. So you should-" She gestured vaguely in the direction of his chest. "And come downstairs." 

"Yes, ma'am," he murmured. She was still staring. All the men she worked with were well built, this should not be this distracting. He was the blondest person she'd ever seen shirtless. The hair on his chest was as pale as the hair on his head. She had the strongest urge to touch it. She was fast enough she could probably do it without him noticing.

She actually lifted her hand before stopping herself and taking a step back. "I'll pour you some coffee," she said and blurred away.

When he came downstairs a few minutes later, he had on a t-shirt that was kind of tight. Had he always worn them like that? Or was her libido making it worse? She didn't put it past him to be messing with her a little bit.

Wanda was giving her a very amused look, which meant she was thinking too loudly. Ignoring her, she held the coffee cup out to Raf. "Three sugars."

That got her a genuine grin. "You pay attention."

"I do. I know how everyone on the team takes their coffee and can order for most of them in a restaurant."

His brow furrowed. "What would you order for me in a restaurant?"

She tilted her head. "Pizza - supreme, no olives. Chinese - pot stickers, pork fried rice, or General Tso's chicken. Nice restaurant - whatever their largest steak was - porter house probably, with baked potato and steamed veggies. Starbucks - venti machiatto. I can keep going."

"I am in awe." 

That pleased her far more than it should have. "It's mostly 'cause I'm the most likely to get sent to fetch food."

"Every time," Pietro muttered from the other end of the table. "Like a damned carrier pigeon."

"Speedsters have very specific problems," Wanda commented.

"Like other people making us late." Kamala looked pointedly at Raf and his uneaten food.

"Some of us can't hydroplane over the Hudson River."

"Slacker," she teased with a grin. He dug into his food. They spent a lot of their time eating, probably because they both at so much. She could see the others smiling at them from the other end of the table, but ignored them.

When he was done and they'd made a good faith effort at helping clean up, Pietro handed her the keys to his car, a zippy little sports car he'd gotten to offset the kidmobiles lined up out front.

"Really?" she said, hugging the keys to her chest.

"You pay the tickets you get."

"Thank you!" She hugged him, then grinned at Raf. "Come on, let's go."

"I've been warned I should be scared of this," he said, but he followed.

"Never had a crash," she told him. It was a pretty little car, all sleek lines and too much engine. If Pietro was a car, that's probably what he'd look like.

"I remember when they thought it was life-threatening to go more than 30mph," he said as he got in. "Which was about the top speed of a horse when trains happened."

The only downside to driving Pietro's car was fidgeting everything into the right position for her. "Our first Christmas after the Grownups came to stay, Nat gave me a framed article from the 18-whenevers warning that women's uteruses would fly out of their bodies if they rode trains." She got the seat dialed in and hit the button for the engine. It purred to life and she grinned. "It's totally electric, but he bought package to make is _sound_ like a gas engine."

"It's a good sound." He put on his seatbelt.

Driving fast wasn't quite the same as running, but it was a lot of fun. Living in New York, Kam didn't have a lot of opportunities to really let it rip. But there were a couple of miles of empty, rarely used straightaway between the compound and the palace and she put the car through its paces. And pulled into a spot by the labs five minutes before she was due for her tests.

Raf grinned at her. "Okay, that was fun."

It hadn't been a deal breaker - she was capable of driving slowly and didn't drive often - but it absolutely delighted her that he'd enjoyed it. "We should go upstate sometime," she said, unhooking her seatbelt. "There's a lot of fun roads up there."

"I will take you up on that."

Still grinning like an idiot, she bounced out of the car. "Come on, I'll take you to Stark's lab before I go get scanned and measured."

He walked up next to her, and after a moment reached for her hand. She slid hers into his without hesitation and their fingers wove together. It was very nice, to be able to do this. To have a little physical connection to him, simple and chaste as it was. It was a step, a declaration to anyone looking.

The others back home were going to have a field day.

Clearly he was thinking similarly. "You think it's already made it back to New York?"

"Maybe. Probably not. I don't think any of them would call back specifically to spread the gossip. I don't think it'll take long to get noticed when we get back."

"If there's a vector, I'd guess it would be Neil Banner, who wouldn't be doing it for gossip. I don't get the sense that kind of social nuance is on his radar. But his curiosity is epic. If he notices—which is a big if—he'll ask his sister."

That was an excellent point, and a remarkable insight given he'd only had one conversation with him. "Well, if Ada finds out there'll be a ticker tape parade when we get home."

"The city of San Francisco wanted to throw me a parade," he commented as they went inside.

"I'm guessing you skipped it?"

"I politely declined."

"I've never been in a parade," she admitted. "Steve does the Thanksgiving parade sometimes."

"I have seen that. I love watching the Macy's parade. From my TV," he added.

"It's very cold. He wears like two under layers beneath the suit and still gets a little thousand yard stare when he's back."

"Reliable warmth this far north is one of the most wonderful things of the modern age. You can't truly appreciate central heat unless you've lived without it." 

"I believe that." Stark's lab was in the way back of the building, cut into the mountain side. Ada liked lots of sunlight and air when she worked, but Tony liked to cocoon. Everyone commented on it, no one really got it.

She could hear Metallica before they got to the door. "Well, he's definitely in."

"I'm glad my eardrums are as sturdy as the rest of me," Raf said.

"I really don't know how he's not deaf at this point." He pushed the door open for her and the music got immediately louder. Raf followed her towards the back of the room, where Tony Stark was hunkered over some very complicated electronics. Blurring, she tapped him on the shoulder, then ducked around to the other side of the table as he turned. "Hi Unca Tony," she singsonged over the music.

He smiled fondly. "You're late. That's literally never happened. His fault?"

"Of course." She gestured. "Tony Stark, meet Hrafnsvartr Ingesson. Raf, Stark."

He reached out and shook Raf's hand. "Welcome to the madness. We love new blood."

"It's an honor to meet you. And I'm 1200 years old, I've met a lot of people." Then he smiled at Kam. "And I'm so impressed you pronounced that right."

"Raf is the best you could probably make out of that train wreck," Stark said.

"Thor clearly won the wacky Asgardian name lottery," Kamala agreed. "I am now very late for my doctors appointments. I'll see you guys later. Please play nice, Unc."

He clutched his chest, right where pearls would be if he were wearing them. "When am I ever not nice?"

"I'll make a list while they're stress testing me," she told him, walking backwards towards the door. She waved at Raf, then turned and _ran_.

*

Raf watched her blur slam through the doors and shook his head. She really was something else.

"I'm starting to think I should check the water in the Tower for aphrodisiacs," Stark commented. Clearly, the besotted look was very obvious.

"Sounds like you're a lot of years too late for that," he replied.

"Yeah. Seems to work out for the better. Best not to rock the boat. Do you want a weapon?"

"I don't. . .think so? I've been informed I'm a tank. I think that involves punching." He paused. "Though if I need to be armed, I'd like a killij and a kettenmorgenstern."

"I don't know what those are, but if you hum a few bars, I can fake it." Stark covered what he'd been tinkering with with a panel and turned to him. He'd been more or less out of the public eye for the last few years. Raf's mental image of him was stuck in the Avenger's heyday, so it was a little jarring to see the heavy threading of white in his hair and beard. "In my day Steve, Thor and maybe Barnes were our tanks and they all used a weapon of some sort. Eli's got a shield. I know Kam uses her fists, but she's got the speed thing. Kind of makes her her own projectile."

He'd been half joking about the weapons, which is why he said those two. But they actually probably were useful for his purposes. "They're a Turkish scimitar and a spiked chain mace. Last time I went to war, the new hotness was smooth bore muskets. Which were nowhere near as accurate or effective as the longbowman, but could be operated by untrained, poorly paid idiots. Because government has been a penny wise and a pound foolish since the beginning of civilization."

Stark had been tapping on a computer terminal, but paused to look over at him. "You probably would have been entertaining to have when we were having our epic fails with our government." He tapped another thing and two holograms popped up, hovering above the table. A killij and a kettenmorgenstern. Stark peered at them a moment. "I can make that work."

Raf grinned. "Thank you."

"Not a problem, I love new projects. Now, let's talk armor."

"I would like that to _not_ be medieval."

"I was not giving you the option." They spent the next half hour going over fabrics and cuts. Raf got scanned by a bunch of little drones so Stark could do a mock up. Somehow he managed to be the only one not to make a cape joke.

"You got any color preference?" Stark asked as he tapped in the finalized style.

"I don't want to look anything like Thor. At all."

If that surprised Stark at all he didn't let it show. "Got it." He finished typing and looked up. "I'll have some stuff for you to try out in a couple days."

"That's very efficient, thank you."

"Efficiency is what I do." Stark looked up at him. "You're welcome to hang out but I'm pretty boring as spectator sports go. Kam's in the medical labs and probably will be for a while." He paused, clearly debating whether to say his next words. "There was someone else who wanted to see you, but maybe you'd prefer I show you how to sneak out the back."

He smirked. "Am I about to have a Royal Visit?"

"T'Challa's planning to 'pop in' on you guys later. But you were close. Thor flew in this morning."

"That was the 'royal' I meant. I'm Asgardian. I expected he'd want to talk to me."

"Ah, right. I don't really think of him-" He shook his head. "Anyway. Yeah, he wanted to talk to you. He's waiting in the lobby."

"That's far more pedestrian than I'd have expected." Raf inclined his head. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. See you in a couple days."


	7. Chapter 7

Raf left Stark's lab, and made his way out into the lobby, as instructed. And there he was, the Prince of Asgard, flipping through a magazine. He didn't look any older than the last time Raf had seen him, of course. But he had changed. He'd cut his hair, which made it look darker. Wearing black jeans and a slate grey t-shirt, he looked like any of a hundred musclebound surfer guys you'd find in California.

He looked up when Raf got close and smiled, tossing the magazine to the side and standing. "Well met, Hrafnsvartr." Well, the booming voice was exactly the same.

"Your highness," he said with a small bow.

He waved a hand. "I abdicated many years ago. Just Thor."

"Then please call me Raf. Much as I enjoy someone actually pronouncing my name right."

"It has always been a mouthful," Thor agreed. "There is a little cafe on site. Would you care to have some refreshments while we speak?"

"Please. I'm starving. People never serve enough food."

"Yes. That is a constant problem." Thor led him to a different wing of the building, where there was, in fact, a nice little coffee shop. They both ordered full meals and found a nice table near the windows, with a view of the jungle.

"I heard you have officially joined the team," Thor said. "I know you wished to keep out of the spotlight, I'm sorry that's no longer possible for you."

Raf lifted a shoulder. "You may have seen on TV. I held up a collapsed roadway for several hours. Suddenly I was famous."

"I have seen the footage. And I know well how the press finds us fascinating."

He nodded, and shoveled some bread and beans in his mouth. He approved of Wakandan food. "People keep talking to me about capes," he commented.

He chuckled, the noise deep and rumbly. "I was. . . very dramatic, I suppose."

Raf shrugged. "We are a dramatic people. We like our ceremony, and our shiny objects."

"True." He was quiet a moment, turning his coffee mug in his hands thoughtfully. "I confess, I wished to speak with you for reasons beyond welcoming you to the team. I find myself in need of counsel. Counsel you are uniquely qualified to give."

He opened his mouth and then closed it. This was quite literally the last thing he would have expected. "I can't imagine what advice I could give you, but I'm all ears."

Thor paused another long moment. "Jane celebrated her fiftieth year this year." He smiled fondly. "We had a great celebration. To me, she is as lovely as the day I met her, I tell her so often. Most of the time, I think she believes me. But I cannot deny the grey in her hair and the lines on her face. Fifty years is a short time to us but for her in means her life is half gone. I fear losing her and the hard years of illness that may come before that." He sighed. "When we last spoke you mentioned, in passing, that you had wives over the years. Families. I was wondering if you had any advice."

"Ah." Raf leaned back in his chair. "I have had six wives. I've been married 200 out of the last 300 years. Four of them made it to old age. In the old days it was almost easier. Death tended to come swiftly, and suddenly. Bang, and then you grieved. Helen, my last wife, died of cancer. It was hard. It took years. But. . . I also got twenty more years with her than any of the others."

"She has encouraged me to return to Asgard full time when she passes. Depending on the states of my friends, I likely will." He shook his head. "I thought, as a warrior, I had come to terms with death. But when I picture life after her. . . it is very dark."

"It gets easier," Raf replied. "It's not ever easy, but it gets better. Fatima was my first wife's name. She's the first person I ever told what I am. The first family I had for more than a few years. Forty-six, to be precise. After she died. . . for a while, honestly, I didn't even want to be alive. I let some backwards Romanian village try to burn me at the stake. I lived in the woods like hermit. Eventually, I started to live my life again. Took about ten years. The ones after that hurt just as much, but didn't knock me down quite as hard."

Thor nodded thoughtfully, sipping his coffee. "The most recent, Helen? I imagine the illness was very difficult to watch."

"It was. The advantage of my long life down here is that I have watched a lot of people die." He sighed. "It was nice to be able to take care of her. That I was strong and healthy. I could talk to the doctors, help her get around, keep track of her medications. My understanding is that in modern times, to be cared for by someone you don't have to pay, who doesn't consider it a burden, is a great gift." Even though that used to be absolutely usual and expected for most of the history he'd lived. Of course, it was much easier to be cared for by one's children when they lived next door and there were nine of them to share the load.

"I do enjoy taking care of her. And I am still famous enough no one has assumed I am her son. She claims to be braced for the day."

"I've always had to hide the fact that I wasn't aging. There was a lot of makeup, wigs, etc. Until she got sick, Helen was a master at it. Could have worked in Hollywood. During her illness I deliberately pretended to be her grandson, actually. We thought I looked too young to be her son."

Thor inclined his head. "Women have babies older now. I'm told."

Raf laughed. "She was 93, and I could barely pass for 30."

With a smile, Thor said, "You speak of her with great fondness."

"She was a hell of a woman," he replied. "We just missed 70 years when she died." 

"You have my sincere, if belated, condolences."

He inclined his head in thanks. "She'd just died the first time I came looking for you. She'd been nagging me to do it since the Battle of New York and of course made me promise. I was still raw and probably an asshole."

That made Thor smile a bit. "Perhaps a bit. But with a bit of distance I've noticed that's a common trait among Asgardians."

"Touché." He took a swig of his drink. "Being a widow was very, very hard for most of history. I took comfort in the idea that I wouldn't ever leave them like that."

"When I was an active Avenger, Jane would often comment on that. She would worry a bit, as was natural. But not as much as many of the other women did. Odds were very good I was always coming home."

"Why don't you do it anymore?"

He lifted a shoulder. "It happened slowly. I enjoyed following Jane around the world. The others would call me if they needed me, but with the younger group trained up I was less and less necessary. Then my team stopped going for anything but the worst of missions and. . .I suppose it just wasn't the same. With the new team. They are good people and fine warriors. Worthy of the mantle of Avengers. But. . . they are not my warriors."

"I can respect that." He nodded. "Enjoy the time with her you have. There will be time for war later."

"Yes. I wish to spend as much time with her as I can." He looked down a moment, then added, "If it's all right, I may wish to speak again. In the future. As her time grows near."

"Of course, of course." He offered a smile. "It's worth the hurt. I promise."

Thor smiled back. "I believe it will be. Thank you." He cleared his throat and slapped the table lightly. "Now then. Enough. Wakanda is a lovely country. Is there anything you'd like to see as you wait for your lady?"

Raf felt his skin flush, and he rubbed the back of his neck. "Word travels that fast, eh?"

"I may have had a brief chat with Wanda while you were in with Stark," Thor admitted.

"Well. We're not hiding or anything, so it's okay."

"I do not know Kamala well, but she has a bright spirit and a fierce heart. I wish you great happiness with her."

"Thank you," he said, with a genuine smile. "I wish that, too."

*

Kamala broke two treadmills during her tests, which was better than the last time she'd been in Wakanda. The technicians were absolutely delighted.

"It's remarkable," Dr. M'bara said as he helped her off the wreckage. "Simply remarkable. You really are a marvel, you know that?"

She gave him a smile. "Just call me Ms. Marvel. Sorry about the treadmill."

"No, no. Not at all. Though I'm afraid I may ask you to come back again before you go, for one more try."

"Sure," she said. "I'm here all week."

He glanced down at the readings he'd gotten. "You are a little faster than last year's numbers. Have you noticed that?"

Kam didn't make a habit of timing her races, but she admitted, "I've noticed my stamina's a bit better the last few months."

"Interesting. Well, it will take a few hours to full analyze your blood tests. Perhaps they'll give us some answers."

She nodded refilling her pockets with her phone and wallet. "Do you have any idea how long I'll live?" she asked him, aiming for a light tone.

Obviously not buying it, he turned to look at her. "Predicting exact age is almost impossible. Even with the years of tests we have, predicting something like that-"

"I don't need a firm number. Just. . . hundreds of years? Thousands?" Raf had three or four thousand years left. No matter what happened between them, she would have company that long. If she was going to live centuries past that, she needed to prepare for that.

M'bara considered a moment, frowning down at his notes. "Centuries, certainly. Let me study your tests, see if I can notice any sort of progression. If you've shown any signs of aging over the eight years we've tested you, then perhaps I can extrapolate. . ."

She recognized mad scientist voice when she heard it. So she just nodded. "All right. Thank you. Let me know if you figure anything out."

She left then, pulling her phone out to text Raf. _They've sprung me. Where you at?_

_Nursing coffee in the cafe. Coffee here is great._

_I've been informed it's even better than Hawaii._ She tucked her phone away again and ran to find him in the cafe.

He was still tucking his phone back in his pocket. "You're kind of amazing."

"I'm told I'm a marvel," she said, sinking into the chair across from him. "Tony treat you all right?"

"He did. He's making me crazy medieval weapons. And then I had lunch with Thor."

"Oh, I didn't know he was in town. How did that go?"

"Better than I expected. He wanted to ask me about outliving one's wife."

Kamala made a soft, sympathetic noise. "Jane has a lot of years left."

"She does. But he wants to be prepared. We said we'd keep in touch. At some point I'll figure out if he's the kind of guy I can tell the, er, more private warnings to."

Her brows arched. "Do I want to know?"

"My experience has been. . . sex goes on longer than you'd have expected when younger, but it will stop eventually. She will then invariably try and insist you go get a mistress/hooker/whatever, because she thinks you'll somehow explode without it. Which you won't. Etc. Might be a little TMI for somebody that fancy. On the other hand, she's 50. The Menopause Train is coming. Might as well brace for it."

Kamala found herself laughing at his phrasing. "I'm still amused you find Thor 'fancy.'"

"He's a Prince. Apparently he was almost King. That's fancy."

"Wait'll you see him and Tony fry a turkey at Thanksgiving."

Raf grinned. “Suppose I will see that, won’t I?”

"Yes, you will. And the big Christmas party. And possibly a New Year's Bash sometime. They don't do that every year.”

“I can’t even tell you the last time I was at a party. It’s been decades.”

"If you tell Tony that he'll throw one just on principle," she told him. "We don't have a lot, but the Grownups are big on the winter holidays. A lot of them don't have blood family or aren't friendly with them, so they've celebrated together for years."

"Every culture I have ever lived in has had a solstice celebration of some sort. Usually the harvest and the planting around the equinoxes, too. It added a certain. . . consistency to my life over the years—which I counted on the winter solstice. Calendars change. The rotation of the earth does not."

That was oddly comforting. No matter how much the world changed around them, there'd be things that were always the same. "I asked to doctors to try to figure out how long I'll live."

"Did they have any idea?"

"Best he could give me was more than a hundred. He said he'd go over all the data they have see if they could determine if I'd aged at all since the accident. Then they could extrapolate from there."

He shook his head. "Considering it's no uncommon for Wakandans to see 100, that's not much of a useful guess, there." 

"Yeah. It's also assuming I'm actually aging. When I first came I heard them theorizing the vibranium had essentially stopped my cell break down entirely. Essentially put me in stasis."

For a moment he just watched her, before asking, "Does that scare you?"

"Being eternally sixteen? Yes. Terrifies me. Doc is pretty sure it's not true, though. She's run monthly tests and said my blood counts and other little things fluctuate. If I was just. . . stopped, they'd be consistent."

"Does your hair grow?"

Unconsciously, she touched her scarf. "I think so. It's a bit longer than it was."

"Then your cells are doing something," he told her. 

She nodded. "I hope so. Just a matter of figuring out what speed they're doing it at."

"Hey, at least there's something about you that's moving slow."

"It is a little ironic, isn't it? Though I guess it's better than prematurely aging or something." Or being dead. When she'd first been hit with the metal, everyone had been pretty sure she was going to die.

"I guess we've got our own pace, too, don't we?" he asked, reaching to touch the back of her hand.

Kamala looked at his fingers on her hand. There were rules, in Islam, about touching. Kam had always had trouble following them. She liked touching and being touched, though she tried to limit it to touching with purpose. She just couldn't imagine Allah begrudged her a high five with Eli or a hug with Pietro. Or finding comfort and connection in holding Raf's hand.

"I'm sorry our pace might be a little slower than you're used to," she said quietly.

He traced a little circle on her skin. "The pace I'm used to is much slower than you imagine."

She felt her cheeks heat. "I suppose you are sort of old fashioned.”

He shrugged. “Other than the one time I helped a girl in trouble, I never rushed into getting married. I needed to be able to tell her the truth about me first, and that takes trust, which takes _time_.”

It always seemed to come back to time with them. "I suppose someone with your life span has a lot of practice in being patient."

"I'm not always good at it, but I try." He looked up at her. "And anyway I'm not a fan of sex that doesn't mean anything."

She smiled widely. "That's what I always figured. I want there to be a connection first."

"I'm not sure if that qualifies as patience when it's my own preference."

"I'll still give you credit for it," she assured him.

"I just. . . didn't want you to think I was sitting over here seething in resentment or something. Best I can gather from the things said at Poker Night, several of those guys have been with more women in the last few years than I have in the last 500."

"The boys very much embraced the young, hot, and famous aspect of superheroing." No one on the team was particularly shy about this area of their life. "Though I get the sense they're slowing down a little bit as thirty looms. Maybe the groupies are starting to register as too young."

"One of the nice things about being long lived is that you kind of stop noticing that stuff. Nobody feels particularly young or old anymore. Maybe it's the lack of a point of reference to your own aging, I don't know." He tilted his head. "I should tell Thor that."

"I have his email." She didn't say it, but Kam thought it would be good for him to make friends with Thor. Someday the world might start to change too much. It would be nice to have a friend in another realm to call.

Raf laughed. "I can't picture him using email."

"According to the others he used to be inept at it, and other technology. Then someone realized it was because Asgard had advanced beyond it and it was like one of them trying to use an abacus or something. They changed the way they were explaining it and he picked it up no sweat."

"Yeah," Raf muttered. "The Dark Ages was a rude surprise, let me tell you."

She wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, I can only imagine.”

“Though not at all dirty. I don’t know why modern people have this impression nobody back then bathed.”

"Modern _white_ people think no one bathed," she corrected, pointing at him. "I know my peeps were clean as all heck.”

“Even white people bathed in the Dark Ages. They bathed publicly. Like the Romans. The Victorians would have been scandalized.” He paused. “They did stop bathing in the 16th century. Which is how I ended up in the Ottoman Empire. I couldn’t take the smell.”

"Yuck." She crinkled her nose up at the thought. "I remember Peter's teen years well enough to imagine.”

Raf was quiet a moment, then said, “Thank you for bringing me here.”

The sudden change in tone threw her a bit, but she smiled. "Of course.”

“I’m just. . . comfortable. It’s nice. I know a lot of that’s about you.”

"Wakanda's one of my favorite places. I love New York and the Tower and everybody. But there's just a different vibe here. It's not quite like a vacation but. . . It's peace. There's peace here.”

“Utopias usually have a dark underbelly, but there doesn’t seem to be one.”

"Darcy jokes she spent her years here on the lookout for the shed of miserable orphans or the vat of virgin sacrifices. But no, it's just nice here. I mean, people are people, there's problems, but they're just approached a different way." She shrugged. "It works. And it continues to work, even with their borders open to the rest of the world.”

“You think you’ll come back and live here eventually?”

"I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe someday, depending on what happens to everyone else. I think it would make me sad to be here without the Maximoffs and Banners. My memories here are wound up in them.”

“Can’t blame you. It’s probably why I move a lot.”

"Is there anywhere you haven't lived that you'd like to?"

He tilted his head, rubbing his jaw as he thought. He usually had scruff, but he was so blonde it was hard to see it. "Tropical islands sound really appealing. Maybe I'll camp out on one for the long haul."

"Have you been to Hawaii? Stark has a house there he lets team members borrow."

"No, but now I want to go."

"It's nice. His place is very private." He'd taken the whole team a couple summers ago. Having a private beach with only people she knew and loved on it had been very nice. "We'll have to arrange you a trip."

"How do you deal with swimming? Wetsuit?"

"More or less. They make some nice ones now. Basically like a t-shirt and capris. Bonus, I never get a sun burn. Not that I can anymore, I think."

"I don't burn, though I look like I would." He held out his arms. "I wouldn't mind a tan."

Kam shook her head. "I swear half the people I know are incapable of tanning. At this point I'm surprised when people _can_."

"I think a trip to Hawaii would be fun. We should put it on our someday list."

She smiled at the idea they were making a list. "I think that's a great idea." Standing, she stretched her arms over her head. "So. The day is young. Want me to show you around the city?"

He grinned. "That sounds like fun."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains references to terrorist activity. There are mentions of death and destruction of property.

_October 2029_

Spring turned to summer turned to fall. Eli and Tess got married on a hot summer day, at their church. Darcy Bennet gave birth to her fourth and - she swore - last daughter. Raf got used to living in a big city. To being on a team. To having a girlfriend whose hair he'd never seen.

Both Kamala and the other men had assumed lack of sex would bother him, but this was honestly fairly normal for him. The hair, though. . . that had become a thing. Not one he mentioned, of course, but it felt very forbidden-fruit.

He hadn't had much of a chance to use his new weapons, missions being mostly humanitarian or PR based. He was fine with that, as he'd had plenty of violence. Gave them time to practice together. And plan ceremonial events.

At the moment, for example, he was being fitted for an extra-fancy tuxedo.

"This is the stupidest outfit that white people have ever come up with," Wyatt said. There was a gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that the team attended every year—Tony Stark bought out a bunch of tables and enjoyed inviting people who bothered society matrons. For this particular year, the organizers had declared it White Tie instead of the usual Black Tie. White Tie was 19th century formalwear, and nobody owned it. So now they were all being fitted for tailcoats, six months in advance because they were bespoke.

"This isn't even in the top 100 stupidest outfits white people have ever come up with," Raf told him. "I could show you some paintings.” He’d worn pretty much this exact outfit to his 5th wedding in 1884. Probably had it stuffed in a closet somewhere back in California.

"At least there's no powdered wigs," Nate offered. "You know Stark would have been the guy throwing powdered wig parties."

"Women's wigs used to catch fire," Raf replied. "And they stunk."

"That's the overarching theme of your history stories," Eli told him. "The past smelled bad."

"Well it did."

"Did _anything_ smell nice?" Peter asked, fidgeting a little as the tailor measured his arm.

"House fires smelled better. Less burning plastic. Which is good, because they were frequent."

Nate chuckled, scrolling through something on his phone. "I'd have liked history a lot more if you taught it."

"I've had several Universities offer me teaching positions."

Instead of answering, Nate made the face he made when his AI, Hiro, was talking to him. He had some sort of computerized brain implant that apparently hooked him into the tower's telecom systems. Raf found it unsettling, but the rest of them never even blinked. 

Raf didn't know if he knew he made a face.

"Because we're trying on penguin suits, they're in the dressing room," he said, apparently to Hiro. "Hang on. Eli, go pick up your phone."

"Why?" he asked, even as he headed back towards the dressing rooms.

"Sounds like there's a thing," Nate called.

"Oh good," Wyatt said. "Can we take these off now?"

Nate made the face again, then said, "Probably a good idea."

Eli poked his head out of the dressing rooms. "Kate has left me three voicemails and eight text messages. Everyone change, we need to be back at the Tower five minutes ago."

"Hiro, call a cab," Nate said as they all went to change.

The girls were all in the briefing room already when they got back to the tower. Kate was pacing at the head of the table. "Jesus, did you guys stop for Starbucks?"

"They wouldn't let us run out of the store with the tuxes," Nate told her, dropping into a chair. "What the hell is going on that has you in a tizzy?"

"A request for assistance from the UN." She sat in her chair. "There is a western terrorist group—likely our _favorite_ Sokovian assholes—trying rather incompetently to kick off WWIII. They have laid siege to a town in a highly disputed area of northeast Kashmir, hoping to bait one or more of the Pakistani, Indian, or Chinese armies to get involved. Which would be bad."

A map appeared on the screen behind her as she was talking, highlighting the area she was talking about. "This isn't a military base, or particularly politically important," Kate continued. "But it is full of civilians, some of them refugees from the _last_ town wrecking terrorist attack." She blew out a breath. "Some of the Grown Ups will be tagging along. Doc will be coming to help the local medics with triage. Tess, that'll free you up for search and rescue and on-site emergency care. Cap and Sarge are going to tag along. Absolutely no one is allowed to tell Stark about this until it's over, that includes you, FRIDAY."

"His media sources are being carefully filtered," the AI told her calmly. 

Eli reached for the tablet Kate had in front of her, probably looking for more data. Raf had noticed Eli liked lots of information before missions. “The Maximoffs?”

"Sharon's on the phone with them. Sounded like they were on board, just figuring out meeting. Banner's a maybe. It's time sensitive, obviously, so I need everybody geared up and in the jet in thirty. Ada and Jorge are already starting prep," she added in Wyatt's general direction.

“Got it,” he replied. “Can I go?”

"Yes, we'll see you at the plane." She paused while he got up. "Any other questions?"

"Just to be clear," Raf said. "This is both a search & rescue AND a fight?"

Kate's mouth thinned into something unpleasant. "Essentially, yes. When we have a better idea of what we're dealing with we'll discuss priorities and strategy. But you all need to be prepared to be very busy."

"Kamala and I speak the local language," he said. "As I believe does Vision." Vision spoke most languages. "Just a note for your organizing."

She nodded. "Got it. Thanks."

Kamala was watching him from across the table. When everyone filed out, he went over to her. "You okay?"

She nodded, but she tangled her fingers with his. "I do like punching people who shoot other people."

"You'll get to see me use my sword," he told her as they made their way to the door.

That got him a little smile. "I'll admit to looking forward to that."

They walked in silence for a few moments, then he said, "The boys tell me it's hard. Wyatt. Eli. The worry." 

"Their girlfriends aren't bullet proof," Kamala pointed out.

"That's. . . a very valid point."

She squeeze his hand and looked up at him. "I promise to be careful if you do."

"I'm always careful. I'm an old man."

"Are you going to wave your cane at the bad guys?"

He grinned. "I am. It has a chain with a mace ball on the end of it."

"That sounds like an awesome cane." They stepped into the elevator and rode up to the apartment floors. "Are you nervous?" Kam asked him. "Been a long time since you were in battle."

It had been centuries. "It's not the kind of thing you forget."

"Like riding a bike?"

"Possibly. I don't know how to ride a bike."

She laughed. "I love when we stumble over random things you don't know."

He loved the sound of her laugh. "When we get back, you can teach me."

"It's a date," she told him as the elevator doors slid open. "I'll see you at the jet."

The jet was controlled chaos when he got down there, which was pretty normal. He'd never seen a mission departure that didn't involve yelling. Some of his teammates were just loud, and it was worse when the grownups were involved. He had no idea why he called them grownups given he was older than all of them—but Kamala and the others did, so he did. 

Kate was having an argument with Ada. Raf tried not to eavesdrop, but picked up enough to know Ada wanted to come and Kate was absolutely forbidding it. Doc was on the phone with someone, speaking calmly so it probably wasn't Stark. Barnes and Barton seemed to be having an in depth conversation about their respective weapon decisions. Cap and his wife were unsuccessfully trying to herd people onto the jet.

He didn't see Kamala anywhere in the crowd, though she had a habit of appearing at the last minute so he wasn't surprised. He made his way over to where Peter and Cassie were loitering, watching the crowd—or, more likely, Kate and Ada. Kate spoke quietly, but Ada had reached yelling. "If this is bad enough to put my Dad on notice, you can damn well take me!"

"This isn't going to end well," Cassie muttered.

"You are nineteen years old," Kate said, still calm and quiet. "I am not taking you into an active war zone."

"You were nineteen when you fought the Avengers," Ada snapped back.

"Yes, and the only reason we all survived it is because we were the _bad guys_ in that scenario." She hadn't raised her voice, but the shift in her tone was enough to get Ada to take a step back. "You want to help, I understand that. You think I'm treating you like a child and you hate me. That's fine. But on the other side of the world people are dying and they're counting on us to save them and you are holding us up. So, right now, Ada, you are the bad guy. You want to keep arguing with me or you want to shut the fuck up and let me get on that jet?"

Steam was practically coming out of Ada's ears. From behind him, Peter said, "That was not the right thing to say."

Ada didn't reply, just turned on her heel and stormed out.

"Seemed to work," Raf commented. They both shook their heads. He looked at them for a moment and sighed. "What?"

"If we're lucky, she'll show up in her suit anyway," Cassie said.

Peter added, "If we're not lucky, she'll call Wakanda to complain."

"And then Tony Stark will show up in his suit."

"And Doc will kill someone."

"Maybe Ada. Maybe both of them."

They were like a greek chorus. It would be funny under funnier circumstances. He pulled out his phone instead and texted Kamala. _If you have a minute, go stop Ada from doing something stupid_

He didn't get a response, but everyone else trickled in and boarded the plane. Kate was in the middle of asking FRIDAY to nag Kamala when she appeared next to Raf. "I'm here, I'm here. Call off the search party."

"You're late," Kate said.

"Argue later, close the jet now," Wyatt called from the front.

Kam hit a button on the wall and sank into the empty seat as the ramp lifted.

Raf glanced down at her. "Did you get my text?"

"I did. She's good. Caught her putting her own suit on." She glanced over at Kate and the Grown Ups. "She told me if she couldn't go on the jet she'd go on her own."

The greek chorus had been right. "You talk her down?"

She nodded. "I told her she was a good person. And a great Avenger. And that if she was really that determined to go, I wouldn't stop her. But that if she went she was going to have to kill someone. Even if she was assigned search and rescue, chances are she'd run into someone with a gun and she'd need to shoot first. And she'd need to look them in the eye when she did it. Then I told her that killing someone - even a really bad someone - was a door you could never go back through. That you were a different person on the other side of that door. And that I wished she could wait a little longer before going through it."

He looked down at her a moment. "You're going to be a really good mother some day."

Startled, she looked up at him, then smiled brilliantly. "Thank you."

He lifted her hand and kissed the back of her knuckles, which was about as much as he could do. He knew the others thought they were a little odd, but it worked. She squeezed his hand tightly and leaned her head on his shoulder.

It was a quiet, tense flight. They weren't entirely sure what they'd be walking into when the landed, so the usual banter was a bit diminished. When they were getting close, Kamala got up and helped the women who wouldn't be wearing helmets or suits cover their hair to respect the locals. They reached their landing zone in the early morning and were met by UN contacts who pulled Kate and the Rogers aside to go over intel.

Everyone else was fiddling with their weapons or gear, waiting for orders. A jet arrived from Wakanda bearing Wanda and Pietro, and there was a round of hugging and catching up. Apparently Wanda also spoke Urdu—acquired from Kamala—which would be helpful.

The leaders came back over and they gathered around for orders.

"Local troops have already done evac for everyone they could find," Kate said. "Right now the terrorists are grouped in two places, the south end of the city, which has an active shopping center, and a residential area in the west. We're going to split in three groups. Two to take out the hot spots and one doing search and rescue. Like I said before, search and rescue is going to need to be on alert for stragglers, so no one is getting an easy job."

"You guys picking teams like gym class?" Nate asked. "I don't want to be last."

"Some things never change," Pietro muttered, though Raf had no idea what he meant by that.

Pietro and Kamala were both assigned search and rescue, as well as Tess. "Cap will be leading the group in the south," Kate continued. "Nate, Raf, Wanda and Barnes will go with them. I'll take the rest to the residences. Comms are open, if anyone comes across a big group of civilians call in the rescue and redirect efforts as you can. Any questions?"

He'd just sort of assumed he'd go wherever Kamala was. Which wasn't logical, of course. But he felt it anyway. He caught her arm as everyone sorted into their teams. "Hey. Stay safe."

She nodded and gave his hand a squeeze. "You, too. I'll be on the comms."

He kissed her knuckles. "See you on the other side."

"I'm told post mission cuddles are the best," she said. Then, before he could answer, she was gone.

Wanda patted his arm lightly. "She will be fine. She's a good warrior."

"I know," he said quietly.

They piled into an open air jeep that looked almost as old as Rogers and headed south via some back streets.

"Intel says we're looking at a few dozen insurgents," Cap said as they drove. "No reports of bombs but they do have some heavy artillery and they're using guerrilla tactics. Everyone watch your six and everyone else's."

*

Kamala listened to the combat chatter with half an ear - mostly keeping track of how Raf was doing.

"Okay, Raf's weapon is officially more awesome than Thor's."

"I'm telling Mjolnir you said that."

"Do not tattle on me to the enchanted hammer.

Apparently, he was impressing people with his morning star. That was probably a weird thing to feel proud about.

Well, he was hers. She could be proud of him if she wanted to.

Tess was scanning collapsed buildings with a device that detected life signs, while Kamala and Pietro searched. It was slow going, and all they were finding was bodies.

"I got a signal," she called out. "The red building here. Second story."

"On it," Kam said, running over.

"Be careful," Tess warned. "FRIDAY's a little worried about the structural integrity.

The side wall did look a little precarious. "I've never had a building fall on me before." Kam pried open the door. "So you're saying skip the elevator?"

"I thought you liked taking the stairs." That was Pietro.

"Yeah, they're great for my glutes." She headed up the stairs at a mostly normal speed. It had clearly been an apartment building and there were signs of frantic evacuation. Doors hanging open, clothes and bags on the stairs and hallway.

"Heat signature is ahead of you about fifteen yards," Tess reported.

Kam counted three doors, then gently nudged the door open. The apartment was on the precarious side of the building. The report Kamala had skimmed on the plane had mentioned RPGs during the first round of the attack. This place had clearly taken the brunt of the hit.

"Hello?" she said in a quiet sing-song, switching to Urdu. "Anyone home? I'm one of the nice people."

There was a clatter from the hallway to her left and she turned just in time to see a man with an assault rifle and flak jacket step out. For an instant she thought he was local military on the same mission as her. Then she noticed the insignia on his arm that the Sokovian terrorists had been using.

He lifted his gun and got off a short burst before she darted forward and bent the barrel. He stared in shock and she grabbed his jaw and slammed his head into the wall, dropping him.

She didn't like killing people. Tried to avoid it when she could. But when it was unavoidable she tried to do it as quickly and efficiently as possible. No suffering, no torture. And she would pray he found peace in the next life.

"Hey Tess?" she said, poking at the dents his bullets had made in her armor. "Your life signs were a bad guy with a gun."

"Of course they were," she muttered.

Kam turned to go, then heard a soft sound from the end of the hall. Frowning, she turned back and walked closer. " _Salaam_?"

Silence.

She counted ten heartbeats as she debated what to do. Then she decided to go with her gut and crept forward, to the room at the end of the hall.

It was clearly a little kid's room, and Kam's stomach sunk. There was a woman next to the bed, clearly dead. She didn't look that much older than Kam. She crouched and touched her shoulder gently, murmuring a soft prayer.

Scanning the room, she straightened and went to the closet, sliding the door open. In the back corner, obscured by clothes and a pile of toys that seemed to have been knocked of a shelf, she saw a very small foot.

_Please don't be dead, please don't be dead,_ she prayed silently as she crouched again.

"Don't be scared," she said softly, touching the foot. It flinched, and she sagged in relief. "It's okay, I won't hurt you. The bad man is gone."

The toys shuffled around and the foot disappeared. Then a little girl, a bit younger that Maggie Rogers crawled out. She stared at Kam with wide, damp eyes.

Heart aching, Kam said, "I'm Kamala. Is it okay if I pick you up so we can get out of here?"

Without a word, the little girl crawled forward and wrapped her arms around Kam's neck. She stood, tilting the girl's face into her shoulder so she wouldn't see her mother. "We're gonna go really fast," she told her. "So hang on tight." After another little nod Kam ran out of the room.

She stopped right in front of Tess, who seemed startled still for a moment, then her faceplate popped up. "Let me see her."

Kam shifted her to hang her over and the girl shrieked, clinging tighter. "Hey, hey. It's okay. She's my friend. She's a doctor. She's going to check you over."

"FRIDAY, open my suit," Tess said. She stepped out of it, wearing the brightly colored scrubs she wore under her suit. She touched the little girls arm. "See? I won't hurt you."

The girl wouldn't understand the words, but the gentle tone helped—though she didn't let go. Tess managed to do a brief exam like, checking her for major injuries. Pietro materialized beside them. "Her family?"

Kam shook her head, switching to English. "No sign of a father. Looks like her mother got hit in the first attacks."

"Poor little one," he said quietly. "We'll get her back to triage and then I'll go get her mother's body."

"Yeah. I'll run her in." She looked at Tess. "Anything else on this street?"

She shook her head, stepping back into her suit. "No more signs here. We just have one more section. And the western group reported in, they're all clear and going to help out the south fighting."

"Maybe we're near the end."

Pietro touched his earpiece. "Kate, Cap, can you have someone swing over to help us on your way down? Kamala's taking a kid back to Doc."

"Sure. Peter and Eli are on their way,"

Kam kind of appreciated it took two people to replace her. She resettled the girl on her shoulder and headed back towards the triage.

There was another screaming fit when she tried to give her to Doc and the local volunteers running triage. She still refused to speak or answer any of their questions, but Kam was able to tell them which building she'd found her in and the volunteers agreed to start trying to track her father down.

She couldn't really go back to search and rescue with a three year old attached to her. So, after rigging up a wrap out of a couple sheets to hold the girl onto her back, she helped out at triage, running supplies back and forth and helping move the injured. By the time the other teams had called in the all clear, the girl was asleep, snuggled against her back.

"Honey," Raf said from behind her. "Is there something you wanted to tell me?"

Turning, she grinned. "Well, you know, I do everything fast."

"I heard you on the comms, but I didn't think you'd still have her. Is she okay?"

"Yeah, but she doesn't want to let me go. Several people have tried. They're trying to find her father and get him up here." She glanced back over her shoulder. "She's been through hell. I don't blame her for not wanting to be surrounded by strangers all alone."

"Let me go find Wanda. She should be able to read her and get more information."

"That's a good idea." He went off to track her down and Kamala finished her supply run before meeting up with them.

Wanda looked tired, and sad. "Poor thing." She reached to touch the girl's back. "War orphans always hit too close to home."

"Petey looked pretty wrung out, too," Kamala said. She'd made a point of going into the more damaged buildings. She knew enough about his past to know a blown out apartment would be triggering.

She knew getting into the mind of a terrified little girl who just lost her mother wasn't going to be easy for Wanda, so she reached out and took her other hand. Wanda closed her eyes. After a moment, she said, "Her father died last year. No close relatives that she sees enough to know. She may not have. . . anyone." She opened her eyes, full of tears. "Her name is Nazneen."

Kam tugged Wanda into a hug, holding onto her tightly for a long moment. Pietro showed up a moment later - Kam suspected Raf had flagged him down - and he took over hugging duties.

"I think we'll head home," Pietro said over his sister's head. "It's been a long day."

"I was good to see you, Petey," she said softly.

"Better circumstances next time, eh?"

Wanda turned her head and looked at Kam. "Make sure she has somewhere to go. Call me if she doesn't. I'll. . .talk to Zev."

"I will," Kam said. "I promise." Wanda nodded and let Pietro lead her away.

She felt Raf touch her hand lightly and let her fingers tangle with his, finding security and strength in him. Then she straightened her shoulders and nodded. "I need to go talk to the coordinator."

He squeezed her hand. "You want to bring her back with us?"

She hadn't actually let the thought fully form yet, but of course that's where she'd been headed. She had no one else and screamed when Kam tried to put her down. She couldn't leave her here. "I do, yeah."

He nodded once. "Okay. I'll go talk to Sharon while you talk to the coordinator."

It was really nice to have someone that was immediately and automatically on her side.

The coordinator had managed to track down someone in the evac camp that lived in the same building and confirmed the girl's father was dead. "We'll try to track down another relative," the woman explained. "But it'll take time. For now, we have people working on a group home to take the orphans to."

Clearing her throat, Kam said, "So, what if I took her home?"

The coordinator blinked. "I - what?"

"She's kind of attached to me. Hasn't let me put her down. I have space in my apartment, and a lot of experienced parents on hand. You can call me when you find someone else and in the mean time she's one less person for you all to keep track of."

She looked at Kam for a moment, then said, "Well. You are practically a national hero. I can't imagine anyone objecting, temporarily."

"Thank you," she said, relief flooding her. "And hey. You know where to find me."

That got her a little laugh and Kam figured she'd leave on a good note, giving her her contact information before heading over to the others.

Raf was standing with Sharon. . . who didn't look mad. That was probably a good thing. "Hi," she said when she reached them. "The coordinator is going to try to track down a relative, but right now the only option is a group home."

"I told her Wanda wanted to take her," Raf offered. "And that you would be way less politically awkward."

"The lady did call me a national hero."

Sharon smiled a little. "Are you sure about this? I'm not saying no. But it could get thorny and I want you to be one hundred percent positive."

That probably wasn't unreasonable. Kam glanced back at Nazneen, still sleeping peacefully, a warm weight on her back. She looked back at Sharon. "She watched her mom die and she's all alone in the world. For some reason, I bring her comfort. Either she's coming with me or I'm staying here."

Smile widening a little, Sharon nodded. "All right. I'll make phone calls once we're in the air."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. My youngest started school yesterday and I was busy weeping and contemplating the inevitable passage of time.

Nanzeen woke up at one point later that afternoon, and Kam managed to get some food in her, though she'd only eat if sitting in her lap. She was just getting her back in the wrap when Eli found them. "Hey. We're loading up. There's a team from MSF that's inbound, Doc and Tess are going to stay to meet them and fly home tomorrow. Sarge and I are staying with them."

"Sounds good." Kam stood. "Everyone okay? No new scars?"

"Amazingly so." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Though I admit actually seeing this guy take someone's head off with a sword may haunt some nightmares."

"Instant death is humane, even if it's gross," Raf replied. "Guillotines were the kindest executions I ever saw."

Eli raised his eyebrows. "How many have you seen?"

"Many. Until the last century, they were public spectacles. There was this fad for some pretty nasty methods in the 14th century—it was kind of a gruesome time, most of which you can blame on the plague—" 

" _NO_!" Came Kate's voice over the comm. "I am eating and I don't want to hear anything about intestines and or boils."

"Technically they weren't actually _boils_. . ."

"I will shoot you with an arrow, I swear to God, Raf."

Kam gave him a straight armed shove. "Come on. Let's get on the plane before Kate decides you're expendable."

"I've been shot with plenty of arrows, none of them have killed me," he replied, but he started towards the jet.

Everyone loaded up and found their seats. Kam settled Nazneen in her lap and was encouraged when the little girl leaned over to look around curiously. "I'm going to take you home," Kam explained. "Until they can find someone from your family to take care of you."

Nazneen looked at her sharply, but still didn't say anything. She turned her head and looked at Raf, and her eyes got huge. He waved his hand and said, "Hello," in hindi.

Her eyes got impossibly wider and Kamala chuckled. "This is my friend Raf."

She kept staring at him, then in a tiny voice asked, "Are you a ghost?"

They both startled a little at her speaking, then Raf grinned. "No. Just pale."

"Oh." She leaned back against Kamala. "I want my Mommy."

Heart breaking, Kamala hugged her. "I know. I'm sorry. But she got hurt very badly." Nazneen nodded a little, and then started to cry. Kam cuddled her close and rocked her, stroking her hair. She wondered if seeing Lani would do her any good. Kamala would have have to translate but it might be better than nothing. Raf put his arm around her shoulders and pulled both of them closer.

After a while, Naz calmed and shifted around so she could look at Kamala's face. She had a very serious expression. "Did Allah send you?"

Blinking a moment, Kam asked, "I'm sorry?"

"Mommy said to hide and pray and that Allah would help me. And then you came. Did Allah send you?"

Kam tried not to think of her powers as some sort of gift from God. That way lead megalomania and supervillainy. Especially with her extended life span. But a theological debate probably wouldn't be very comforting to an orphaned three year old. "If you're asking if he whispered in my ear, then no," she said gently. "But I believe he put me on the path that would help me find you."

"I'm safe now?"

"You are completely one hundred percent safe."

She was silent a long moment, then, "I'm hungry."

Well, they say kids are resilient. "Then let me introduce you to the wonderful word of MREs."

*

Everyone slept fitfully on the plane, and were slow-moving and grumbly upon landing. Nazneen still wouldn't let Kamala put her down, so Raf carried her gear. They'd had FRIDAY call back to the Tower and get someone dig up a small bed for Kamala's spare room for the little girl to sleep in, and collect her some supplies.

When they got up to Kam's apartment, Ada was sitting on the couch. She hopped up. "Hi, didn't mean to be creepy. The Wife Line is just sensory overload." 

"It's okay," Kam said, though it sounded automatic. "How are you doing?"

"Good. I heard about the little girl and wanted to help get her room ready." She gestured towards the second bedroom door.

"Thank you." She looked down at Nazneen and switched to Urdu. "You want to see where you'll be sleeping?"

"Okay," she said quietly.

Ada went to the door and opened it, letting Kamala in ahead of her, and then Raf followed. The last time he'd been in this room it was full of stuff—Raf thought she was a little bit of a packrat—and he wasn't even sure where they'd put the bed. But everything had been removed, and not only was there a bed there, the room was full of kid furniture. It was decorated in bright colors, and a large rainbow was painted on the wall. An army of stuffed animals lined the bed.

"Oh, wow," Kamala said. Nazneen wiggled to be put down and immediately ran over to the bed to inspect the animals.

"We weren't sure what clothing size she was, so Darcy sent down a couple of boxes of hand me downs from her girls," Ada said. "She said if you need anything bigger or smaller to let her know."

"Ada. . . this is amazing. It's too much." She turned and hugged her.

"When Neil and I first moved to the Tower when we were little, Dad had our rooms decked out. Mine was all science-y and Neil's was an Iron Man shrine. It made us feel welcome and. . .safe." She looked over at Nazneen. "My First Dad died when I was her age. It's my earliest memory, actually. I woke up to the EMTs running in. I wore my tutu to the funeral, and my evil hag of a grandmother was a bitch about it." She winced. "I shouldn't curse. She doesn't to learn _those_ English words. Which reminds me. . ." She gestured at the ceiling, "FRIDAY, if you please."

"I have been given an upgrade to my language programming," FRIDAY said, in perfect Urdu.

Nazneen startled and looked up and Kam chuckled. "I have never heard Urdu with an Irish accent. That's . . . different."

"I can remove the accent if it is bothersome."

"No, it adds a certain charm." She looked at Ada. "Thank you for this. It's amazing."

"Every kid in the family donated a stuffed animal."

Kam looked a bit like she was going to cry. "That's very sweet. We'll go around and say thanks once she's settled."

"Take your time." She gave Kam a hug. "I'll see you guys tomorrow."

"Goodnight, Ada." Once she was gone, Raf could see Kam deflate a little, as if she'd turned off company manners. Nazneen was sitting on the bed, hugging what looked to be a stuffed hippopotamus very tightly.

"How about I make us some real food?" he suggested.

"That would be great," she said, sounding tired. "Maybe I can talk her into a bath."

He squeezed her shoulder. "Good luck." Then he went to the kitchen to see what he could dig up.

Kam's kitchen was usually pretty well stocked, so he was able to find some chicken, vegetables and quick cooking polenta. He cobbled together a pretty hearty meal, listening with half an ear to the sounds of splashing and murmurs of talk from the other end of the apartment. He was getting a little concerned the polenta was going to be glue when the ladies emerged.

Nazneen was in a cute little nightgown that looked like a princess gown, hair damp but brushed, hippo tucked under her arm. Kam had clearly taken the opportunity to clean up and change as well, in a pair of the loose lounging pants and t-shirt she favored. Her fully covering, combat hijab had been traded for a purple scarf pinned in place.

Her eyes lit up when she saw the food. "I love that you can cook."

"With modern equipment, people who can't cook should be ashamed of themselves." He carried plates to her table. "People think they can't cook because everyone had made cooking so complicated. Go online, you'll find people arguing furiously over whether something should be baked at 350 or 375. We made perfectly good bread when the oven thermometer was Very Hot, Hot, and Less Hot."

"Tess makes bread," Kam commented, settling Nazneen in a chair and putting chicken carrots and a big spoonful of polenta on it. "But she's probably one of those people who would argue about it online, too."

After a moment of the girl staring at her plate, Raf reached over, picked up the fork and knife and cut the chicken up.

Kam frowned. "I eat dinner with small children all the time. I should have thought of that."

He lifted a shoulder. "I've raised 14 kids. Gets to be muscle memory after a while."

"So you can show me the ropes?" she asked with a smile.

He grinned back. "I kind of figured I'd help."

She looked over at Nazneen, who had cautiously tried the polenta and was now eating that and only that. "I'm going to need all the help I can get."

After dinner, Nazneen was yawning again, so Kam tucked her in while Raf cleaned up the dishes. He made some of her favorite cardamom tea and waited for her on the couch.

She joined him about twenty minutes later, sinking next to him. "Bless you," she murmured, taking the tea.

"This has been the longest day I've had since the earthquake."

"Absolutely." She leaned back on the couch and sipped her tea. "Am I nuts?"

"No. I survived because kind people took in a little boy who had nothing and no one."

"I just. . . I knew I wanted kids. I just never thought it would happen like this. And part of me keeps reminding myself it's temporary. She has to have someone out there who'll take her, right? So I'll get attached and it'll break my heart."

"It will," he said. He'd gone to every funeral. "You do it anyway."

She looked over at him. "Because it's worth it?"

"I've always found it to be. Even the stuff that still hurts. And she needs you right now." 

"Yeah. Yeah, she does." She sipped her tea again. "On the bright side, I can now pre-empt my mother's begging for grandbabies."

He laughed. "Maybe it will soften the blow when you explain me."

"It can't hurt." She reached over and took his hand. "We should probably revisit introducing you to them."

He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. "I can wait it out, if needs be. In the scale of our lives a few decades isn't much."

She wrinkled her nose, which he thought was more about her parents dying than them living so long. "I know. But. . . I want them to meet you. I want them to know I'm happy. That I have someone. I think _that_ will soften the blow when I explain my lifespan."

"The weirdness of me may be a useful distraction from the big picture. I am, you know, technically an alien."

"I don't think about that very often," she admitted. "You tend to be the most down to earth of my friends."

"I think it's because I've lived in a shack with a large multi-generational family and a farm's worth of livestock. You don't get more unpretentious than that."

"That's a very good point." She finished her tea and got up to bring the mug to the kitchen. He heard her rinse it out before she rejoined him on the couch, sitting sideways with her back against the arm and her cold toes tucked under his thigh. "So maybe after everything with Nazneen gets sorted out I can talk to them about bringing you over. Or we can have them come here, but if you go there Mom will feed you."

"Food is a better social lubricant than alcohol, if you ask me."

"My family certainly uses it as such. I remember getting a lot of food right after the accident, when the doctors were trying to figure out what was happening to me."

He chuckled. "A lot of people express love via cooking."

"I will concede being told you're riddled with a mysterious metal and will probably die goes down a lot easier when chased with a serving of Mom's gulab jamun."

He turned, stretching his legs out on the couch next to hers so he could lean against the armrest. It had been a very long day. "I can't wait to try some."

"I'll request it when we go over." Sighing, she tucked her arm up against the back of the couch and leaned against it. "It's very sweet."

He reached down and rubbed her ankle. "Sugar is a modern wonder."

"What did you use before? Honey?"

"Sometimes. There was fruit. But mostly food was less sweet. It was a rarity, because it was so expensive." He yawned. "People did have better teeth back then, though."

"Mmm. Nate and Peter once tried to convince me to drink mead. Claimed the Koran only mentioned fermentation of fruit and grain and it's made from honey."

He lifted his head. "Christians have been like that since the middle ages. They go through their religious doctrines like corporate lawyers looking for loopholes. Way to miss the point."

"I thought it was amusing, then whipped out my copy of the Koran and asked them where." She grinned. "Kate has a picture of their faces, somewhere."

He settled back down. "It's been a long time since I've read any of it. . . but we're probably breaking some rules, aren't we?"

"A bit," she admitted, but she was smiling. "What with the touching of bare skin and such. But. . . faith and religion are two different things. And religion doesn't adapt as fast as the rest of the world might like." She shrugged. "I ask myself if what I'm doing would offend Allah or impede my faith. I don't think he would begrudge me a little comfort and connection with someone I love."

He nudged her with his leg. "I love you, too."

She smiled and settled her hand over his foot. "Mmm. Good."

He closed his eyes, feeling content. "If you were mortal, this is about when I'd pay your father a visit. Or whatever it is the kids do these days."

Her chuckle turned into a yawn. "I think Eli went and had a talk with Doc before proposing to Tess."

"Good for him. She's scary."

"She's way scarier than my Dad."

There was a stretch of silence while they both drifted. Most nights these days they had FRIDAY connect the comms in their bedrooms and they'd talk until they fell asleep. Doing so now just seemed sort of natural. And he was too comfortable to move. Eventually he did manage to mumble, "FRIDAY, lights." The ceiling chirruped softly in acknowledgement. He was dimly aware of the lights dimming into darkness before he fell asleep.

*

Kamala woke the next morning with a stiff neck and a funny taste in her mouth. Gingerly lifting her head, she saw Raf fast asleep on the other end of the couch. Over the course of the night he seemed to have taken up more and more of said couch, until she was tucked in the corner, legs tangled around his. He really wasn't couch sized, even a big, comfy couch like hers.

Carefully, she extricated herself from his limbs, standing up. Raf immediately shifted and stretched to take up the remaining room. She'd been lucky to squeeze out her corner, apparently. Yawning, she fixed her scarf back into place and went to check on Nazneen. After confirming she was still sleeping, Kam ducked into the bathroom to wash up before pulling her prayer mat out.

It was a little early for morning prayers, but she'd missed several of them the last couple days so she'd need to pray the _Kaza_ to make up for it. On her second to last prayer, she straightened to find Nazneen sitting next to her, quietly watching. The hippo from last night had been exchanged for something resembling a pink moose. Unable to stop her prayers, Kam offered her a little smile before bending to the rug again. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the little girl do the same, and she echoed that last few words of the final prayer.

"Did you used to help your mom pray?" she asked her, when she was rolling up her rug.

Nazneen nodded. "She said I didn't have to learn till I was older. But I liked watching. And the words were pretty."

"They are pretty." Kam held out a hand and when she took it, she lead her to the kitchen. Raf was still fast asleep on the couch. "Hungry?" Nazneen nodded. "What would you like for breakfast? What's your favorite?"

After a moment's consideration, she said, "Chocolate chip pancakes."

"I can do that." Plopping the little girl into a chair, she started gathering ingredients and digging out her griddle. "Do you have a nickname? Nazzie, or NeeNee or something?"

"My Dad used to call me Nazzie. Mom didn't. Made her sad." She paused. "But I liked it. You can call me that."

Kam glanced over. "You sure? If it was special to your dad-"

She hugged her moose. "I miss it."

"Nazzie it is." She turned the griddle on and started cracking eggs.

"What should I call you?"

"Kamala or Kam. Auntie, if you like. Or you can make up a silly name for me."

Nazzie nodded, pondering. "Is Raf your husband?"

"No," she said, then felt compelled to add, "Not yet. He's -" She wasn't quite sure what to call him. She and Kate had had a conversation about that not long ago. Boyfriend was accurate, but felt vaguely young. Partner was stiff and vague. Kate had toyed with using lover, but felt it minimized what Wyatt meant to her. It wasn't really an option for Kam, but it had given her an idea. "He's my love," she finished, hoping that wasn't too sappy or esoteric for a little kid.

She seemed to roll with it, nodding again. "How come you're so fast?"

Kam's parents had been big believers in telling an age appropriate version of the truth for pretty much any question she'd had growing up. "A long time ago I got hit by a magic rock and it gave me super powers."

A pause and she looked over to find Nazzie staring at her with wide eyes. "That's cool."

"I like to think so."

She peppered Kam with more questions as she cooked. About her and Raf and the other team members and the Tower and the voice in the ceiling. It was a remarkably fun way to start her morning.

Eventually he stirred and wandered into the kitchen. "Did I miss pancakes?"

Kam flipped the last batch onto the serving plate. "No, you are just in time for pancakes. There's also coffee in the pot." Nazzie politely patted the chair next to her in invitation.

He grinned at sat next to her. "Hello, little one."

"Good morning. Kamala is very patient."

Raf laughed. "Well that is news to me."

Kam stuck her tongue out at him as she set the heaping pile of pancakes on the table.

Looking confused, Nazzie explained, "That's what my mother would say when people would answer my questions. They're very patient."

"Got a lot of questions, huh? I like answering questions."

Her eyes lit up and she promptly began directing her interrogation at him between bites of pancake. Kam poured herself some coffee and took a seat on the other side of Raf, smiling at the two of them. He reached under the table and held her hand while he explained the mechanics of the building's elevator to her—with his usual historical tidbits about a victorian cage lift.

They polished off the stack of pancakes in record time and Raf took Nazzie back to the living room - in the middle of a discussion on the history of doll making - while Kamala cleaned up the dishes. It was very calm and domestic and. . . normal. She realized that she didn't feel restless or eager to move on to the next thing. For the moment she was content to fill the dishwasher and listen to the murmur of voices in the other room. It had been a while since she'd felt that. The world often seemed to be moving in slow motion, as if she was somehow out of sync with it. Every so often things would snap into place and she'd be comfortable in her skin again. Those moments had started happening more often with Raf in her life.

Giggling drifted in from the living room, and when she went out there he was dangling Nazzie upside down by her ankles. He looked up and said, "Uh oh. She caught us."

Kam grinned. "Raf! Where did Nazzie go? I only see Upside-Down-Kid."

"I don't know. She just vanished."

"No! I'm here! I'm here!" she cried, sounding genuinely upset. "Don't leave!"

They exchanged a glance, then Raf promptly righted her. "It's okay," Kamala said. "We were just teasing."

She reached for Kamala, winding her arms around her neck. "I don't want to be in the closet."

"It's okay," she whispered, rubbing her back and stroking her hair. "No more closet, I promise."

Nazzie took a deep breath and sighed. "Okay."

A visit to Lani was definitely in order, if only to give Kam and Raf some ideas how to handle moments like this. For now, distraction was probably her best option. "Now. What should we do today? Go to the park or zoo? Or I could see if any of the other kids in the building want to come play. FRIDAY can help translate."

"I want to play."

"Okay. I'll make some calls. Maggie Rogers and Anne Bennet are your age. And maybe Rei Wilson, she's a bit older, but she's sweet." And would conveniently give Kam a chance to talk to Lani.

"And I want a big slide."

She glanced up at Raf, who shrugged and smiled. "I will procure you a big slide," Kam promised.

Raf tipped his head back. “Hey, FRIDAY?”

“The largest slide in New York City is Slide Hill on Governors’s island. It’s 57 feet in length.”

Kam felt vaguely nauseous at the thought of it, and she was an adrenaline junkie. But Nazzie was smiling brightly, so clearly they were going to Governor's Island. "Okay. Well we better get dressed if we're going anywhere."

"Does that require a ferry?" Raf asked. By the sound of his voice, he was hoping it didn't.

"A ferry is involved, yes." She tilted her head. "Are boats not ok?"

"The last time I was on a boat was 1736. Four months of cramped and disgusting hell, and then it sank 10 miles off the coast of Massachusetts. Didn't leave this continent again until the advent of air travel. I. . .don't like boats."

She paused and Nazzie looked utterly flummoxed. "I mean. . . I could run us across, but last time I did that it made the news and Sharon got cranky with me."

"I suppose if it sinks, the Avengers will come, and I won't have to swim to shore pulling a dozen people on roped together wood hunks like some sort of aquatic mule."

"If it comes to that we can pull it together," she promised.

"Only for you," he said with grin. "Will I get on a boat."

"I'll hold your hand the whole time."


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There'll be a second update on Thurs as I switch to a twice a week schedule.

She called Darcy first to see about arranging the playdate—she was on maternity leave for her youngest, and was most likely to have free time on a weekday. Darcy told her Governor's Island closed at the end of September for the winter, and also that the slide was really scary—but promised to find somewhere for them to go. 

An hour later found them at a playground in Central Park that had plenty of slides. Darcy had apparently marshaled Sharon and Lani to come along, toting their kids that were too young to be in school.

Annie Bennett and Maggie Rogers took to Nazzie like they'd been best friends for life, seemingly impervious to the fact that they had no language in common. Raf waded into the playground to keep an eye on them, even volunteering to take Sasha, Lani's barely-walking toddler, so the women could chat. Kam knew the Tower Moms did this sort of thing, but it was strange to suddenly be part of it.

"How's she doing?" Lani asked, once they'd gotten settled.

"Okay, I think," Kam said. "All things considered. She slept all night, but this morning had a little panic attack thing when we were playing."

"Children that age feel everything very deeply. And very equally. You'll see a lot of that."

"She was in a very good mood at breakfast. Asked us both a ton of questions. Then I said one thing wrong thing she she was begging us not to put her back in the closet.”

Sharon and Darcy made nearly identical sad noises at that.

"Sharon said the workers back in Pakistan were looking for family members?" Lani asked.

Kam nodded. "Wanda read her and didn't find any memories of close family, so I don't know who they'll find or how long it will take. It's a weird limbo to be in.”

“It’s pretty chaotic over there,” Sharon said. “It may be a while.” She looked out at the kids. “Steve told me on the way home Raf was telling him a story about all the records that burned in San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake, and the general chaos that caused. It could be they never find anyone.”

"I know." She watched him crouching at the bottom of the slide, coaxing Nazzie to come down. "I hope they don’t."

“Already attached?” Lani asked.

She nodded. "If they find some aunt or loving cousin who'll welcome her with open arms, of course I'll bring her back. But it'll break my heart.”

“Kids’ll do that to you,” Darcy said. The baby began to fuss from within the blanket draped stroller where she’d been sleeping. She leaned over to pull her diaper bag from the bottom and dig out a bottle. “Somehow it’s worth it.” The bottle itself was high-tech, something Stark made. Darcy pressed two buttons on it’s side, it chimed, and then handed it to Lani to hold while she got the baby. “She’s young enough we should show you the stroller garage.”

Kamala felt her brows go up. "There's a garage full?”

“Yeah, we all share them. There’s literally every kind in there. Big, small, jogging, doubles, for all ages of kid. Even Pepper’s old bullet-proof flying stroller, for those paranoid days.” 

“There’s an old-school pram,” Sharon said. “Because Steve and Bucky are old farts sometimes.”

"That's adorable. I'm a little sad she's too big for it, Raf would probably get a kick out of it.”

“It’s enormous,” Darcy said. “It has a seat conversion that I could probably fit Ellie in, even.”

"I'm totally borrowing it, then.”

Raf came back over to them, Sasha draped over his shoulder. “Diapers?”

Lani reached up for her. "I got her. Thanks."

"Are you having fun?" Kam asked him.

“I am, kids are fun.” She scooted over so he could sit next to her. He glanced over at Lani changing her daughter. “Hundred-fifty years ago I’d have sold my soul to an underworld deity I don’t believe in for disposable diapers.” He gestured at Darcy. “And baby formula.”

"I need you to start posting on some of the internet parenting boards," Darcy told him. "They have _opinions_ on those things.”

“Are they the same people who don’t believe in vaccines? ‘Cause I have _opinions_ about that, too.”

“You should talk to Steve,” Sharon said. “He does a Public Service campaign about that pretty regularly. Talks about what it was like to have measles.”

“Pfft,” Raf replied. “I’ll tell them what it’s like to watch smallpox kill half your family.”

She stared at him a moment. "Yes, you two should definitely team up."

"I think that might be too much grumpy old man for one room," Darcy said.

“I’m not grumpy,” Raf replied. “Asgard long, long ago figured out mastery of their environment. The whole realm, the whole culture, is like a well-oiled machine. Then I get dumped down here, in the middle of what I think was Europe’s worst famine ever. Then a generation later the Black Death. Humanity was completely at the mercy of the weather, and of disease. It was pretty terrifying. In the 17th century they figured out how to inoculate against smallpox and I thought maybe there was hope for Midgard yet. And now we live in a world mostly free from epidemics with staggering death tolls. Most impressive thing I’ve seen humanity do in my many centuries down here. But no one ever grasps how privileged they are until they lose it. I didn’t.”

There was a moment of contemplative silence at that. Then Sharon nodded, "Yeah, we definitely need to add you to the PSAs."

Kamala chuckled and shook her head, getting to her feet then holding a hand out for Raf. "Come on, looks like the girls need some pushes on the swings.”

He took her hand. “Am I being a buzzkill again?”

"A little bit," she admitted. "I don't know that friendly playground chatting is the place for historical privilege perspective.”

“I’m really lousy at small talk.”

"I like your small talk," she protested. She imagined his frequent and often random historical tidbits weren't everyone's cup of tea. But she found it fascinating. She'd learned more with him than she had in all the school she'd gone to.

“Maybe that’s why we get along so well,” he replied.

"Probably. I think half of relationships is finding pleasure in the other person's quirks.”

*

Parenthood, like riding a horse, wasn’t something you forgot how to do. Raf hadn’t taken care of children in a century, but suddenly it felt like yesterday. Kamala hadn’t specifically asked him to help her with Nazzie, but he was there every day anyway, from breakfast until they tucked her in at night. Lani helped them locate a child therapist who spoke Urdu—you could find anything in New York. They hired a tutor to start to teach her English. There was even a nursery school at Kam’s mosque that she’d be able to go to once a week.

“I’ve blamed work two weeks in a row,” she told him that night during their bedtime comm conversation. “It’s time to face my parents.”

Raf was in the middle of flossing, but stopped to say, “You going to start with the Surprise Foster Child or the Blond Alien Boyfriend?”

"I was going to bring you both and let the child soften the alien blow."

“Just rip the whole bandaid off?” He tossed the floss and turned the tap on to brush his teeth. Modern toothbrushes were a vast improvement over chewing on sticks.

"Yeah. I've gone around it in my head. Nazzie will be more comfortable with you there and I feel like explaining her will sort of tie into explaining you." She paused. "If you didn't speak a common language I'd be more worried, but at least I know we won't leave you out of the conversation.”

He’d gotten pretty good at timing his toothbrushing to topics that she talked longer on. He used to care more if she heard him spit, but they didn’t have much by way of boundaries anymore—aside from the very obvious physical one. “Well, at least I’m bulletproof if anyone gets really mad.”

"I have taken that into my calculations," she assured him. Blowing out a breath, she added, "So, what do you say? Up for meeting the family?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

"Okay. I'll call Mom tomorrow and tell her we'll be there this weekend.”

“Sounds good.” He stripped and tossed his clothes in the laundry drawer. He had no idea where it went, only that if you put your dirty clothes in it at night, when you woke up in the morning, they would be clean and folded. Far cry from beating wet clothes with a stick beside a river, that was for sure. “Modern technology is amazing.”

"You're using the laundry chute again, aren't you?”

He laughed. “Do I marvel at it too often?”

"No, we just spent like a month raving to each other about it when we moved in. We decided it was laundry elves.”

“In 1923 I bought my fifth wife, Greta, an electric washing machine for her 60th birthday. We sat there, fascinated, watching the whole cycle.” 

Kam laughed brightly. "What did you do when you saw TV for the first time?”

“Helen and I thought it was a crappy substitute for a movie theatre.”

Another laugh. "Yeah, that's valid.”

He climbed into his bed and pulled the covers up. “FRIDAY, lights.” Then to Kamala he said, “Movies, though. . . that was something.”

"I can't imagine. I feel like we take them for granted now." She paused. "I bet it was like the first time I saw a live production on Broadway.”

“I’ve seen lots of live theatre. Though not Shakespeare. Everyone asks me that. I was in Damascus. But capturing motion on film. . . that was a revolution.”

"No, I know. I was just thinking, I grew up with movies, so they weren't special. But the first time I saw a musical on stage I was blown away. Whereas you were used to live theater but movies were the amazing thing. It's just a funny opposite experience.”

“That makes sense.” He smiled. “Maybe the next technological evolution we’ll get to marvel at together.”

"I'd like that," she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

He could also hear the sheets rustling, as she too got into bed. This was his favorite part of the night, listening to her move around in her bed, picturing her in pajamas and her hair down. She’d probably be offended if she had any idea just how skimpy said pajamas had become in his imagination. “It’s really nice, you know,” he said quietly. “Thinking about the future."

"It is. The future would be a lot scarier without you in it.”

“I’m usually good company,” he replied.

"I like everything I've seen so far. Do you snore?”

“Not that I know of. You’d think one of ‘em would have told me.” He tried not to let his mind wander too far onto the topic of sharing a bed.

"I would think it would have come up at some point, yeah.”

His eyes were closed, and he could feel himself drifting. “You didn’t hear anything that night on the couch?”

A pause, possibly while she thought. "No, not that I remember. I was pretty tired, though.”

“There we go,” he murmured. After a long pause he added, “Hey, Kam?”

“Yeah?"

“You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.”

She made a soft little sound, then said very quietly, "So are you.”

He smiled and replied, “I love you.”

"I love you back. See you in the morning.”

That was the last thing Raf heard before falling asleep. When he woke up in the morning he hopped in the shower. Showers were modern marvels; if he never took a bath again in his long life, that would be fine. Then he went to Kamala’s place to make breakfast. At the door he asked, “FRIDAY, is she decent?” She was generally up for her morning prayers and dressed well before he got up, but it was prudent to check.

“Yes,” FRIDAY replied. “Mrs. Rogers is visiting.” The door slid open. Kamala and Sharon were on the couch. Neither of them looked happy.

Looking over as he came in, Kam mustered a weak smile. “Hi."

He walked closer. “What happened?”

"The refugee director called, they found an uncle of Nazzie’s."

All the hair left his lungs. “Oh, honey.” It was impulsive, and mostly instinct, but he held out his arms for her.

She sniffled and stood, wrapping her arms around him for a hug. He rocked her a moment, before Sharon cleared her throat. "There is a little good news," she offered.

He absolutely should not be at a time like this, but he was very distracted by the fact that her entire body was pressed against his. All he could manage was, “Yeah?”

"The uncle is older, and single. He only met Nazzie once, when she was a baby, and is uncomfortable with the idea of raising her. He expressed interest in signing over his rights.”

Raf frowned. “That sounds like a lot of good news. Doesn’t it?”

"You are clearly unfamiliar with international adoption," Sharon said dryly.

Kamala stepped away from him, rubbing her eyes. "The director told us that if he signs her over, she'd have to go back to Pakistan and go to an orphanage, while I petition to adopt her and the process goes through. Which could take months or years.”

“Jesus,” he said. “Who came up with that?”

“Government bureaucrats,” Sharon replied.

“It was nowhere near this complicated when I was last adopting kids. You went to the orphanage and they let you take however many you want home. It is literally harder to adopt a cat nowadays than it was to get a child in 1890.” Slowly his braincells began working again, now that she wasn’t touching him. “You have dual citizenship, don’t you? Couldn’t you do, like. . . a national adoption. Whatever that’s called.”

"Domestic," Kamala said. "And I asked. She said the odds of the government letting a single woman adopt was pretty much nil.”

Raf tilted his head. “Hey, Sharon? Could you give us a minute?”

Her brows went up, but she stood. "Of course." She touched Kam's arm lightly. "Call me if there's anything I can do to help." She nodded and Sharon gave Raf a pointed look on her way out.

When the doors closed he looked back at Kamala. “Do they require your husband to be Muslim?”

She blinked a moment. "I - they didn't say. I doubt it, that'd be opening them up to lawsuits.”

He shrugged. “It’s Pakistan. I thought there might be weird rules.”

"I feel like the married thing is already pretty obnoxious.”

He paced over and sat on her couch. “So. . . how about we do it?”

Frowning, she moved to sit next to him. "Do what?”

He smiled a little, feeling more nervous than he should for someone who had done this six times before. “Get married.”

Her eyes widened and her mouth opened and closed a few times, but no sound came out. Finally, she squeaked out a, “Really?"

“This is not the sort of thing a man jokes about.”

"I'm not- I mean, if this is just about Nazzie, I'm touched but-“

“Hey,” he said, cutting her off. “It’s not about Nazzie. I mean maybe the timing but. . .” He shrugged. “We talk about the future. We talk about it like it’s a certainty. And yes, our situation is very weird, and maybe in a century we’ll hate each other but we’ll deal with that then. I love you. I want to fall asleep with you without a wall between us.” He paused. “And I am dying to see your hair.”

She giggled and shook her head. Then nodded, almost to herself, and leaned on his shoulder. “Yes."

He was still for a moment, just breathing. “Can I kiss you?” he asked quietly.

After a heart beat's pause, she lifted her head and nodded. He reached out, curling his index finger under her chin and tipping her face up. Then he kissed her as gently, as carefully as he could. She sighed softly against his mouth. After a moment, he felt her hands tuck around his waist, shifting closer. He cupped her cheek and the kiss deepened and picked up heat. The whole world seemed to fall away.

Kam finally pulled away, but only an inch or two, breathing hard. Her face was flush, but she grinned a little when she met his eyes. "This is going to make the whole meeting my parents thing even more complicated."

"Hi, we're engaged? Yeah, I can see that." A lock of hair escaped her scarf and he reached to tuck it back behind her ear. 

"I should probably preface it over the phone." She leaned into his hand a little. "Though that will be awkward in itself."

"Only way forward is through," he said, and then he kissed her again—something he'd be very happy to just do all day.

She was a little hesitant kissing him back, but cuddled closer again, so he was pretty sure that was lack of experience more than anything else. She was very soft and warm against him.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to turn into Octopus Hands." He kissed the tip of her nose. "Nazzie will be up soon. I'll go start breakfast."

"I trust you," she told him, standing. "I'm going to try to call my mom, get it over with. If you heard loud Urdu from my room, just have FRIDAY turn Teletubbies up higher.”

He gave her a salute. “Remember I love you.”

"I'll repeat it like a mantra," she called over her shoulder. 

He watched her, then went into a kitchen. This seemed like a good day for waffles.


	11. Chapter 11

The call with her mother ended with Kam being ordered to appear at dinner the next day to fully explain herself. She wasn't sure if that was more or less nerve-racking than crashing the weekly family dinner, but at least it meant her brother and soon-to-be-sister-in-law wouldn't be there. Explanations were better without an audience.

She dressed Nazzie in a frilly purple dress, to the little girl's delight. Not even her mother could resist a preschooler in a party dress. They borrowed a car from the motor pool - and got help from no less than three fathers in the motor pool mechanics while installing Nazzie's car seat - and were on their way south to New Jersey.

Raf was driving. “This is probably the wrong time to say this, but you’re tapping your fingers so fast your hand is just a blur. It’s really cool.”

"You should see me when my knee starts jiggling," she replied. She made a brief effort to slow her hand, but gave up. "I should have had you guys drive and ran. That would have sucked up my nervous energy.”

He blinked. “You want me to pull over?”

She considered it briefly. But they were already on the parkway and running on major roads was a hassle. "No, it's okay. Getting there twenty minute earlier than you two won't help me.”

“It’ll be okay,” he said. “I’ve got your back.”

"I know. I know. It's silly. Mom and Dad are really nice people. They're not going to do anything awful." Kam was surrounded by people with dysfunctional families, she knew how lucky she was. "I suppose I just feel a little bad. Dumping all of this on them.”

“Grandchildren make up for a lot of sins.”

That was a good point. "Mom was excited about meeting her.”

She watched the signs pass, the familiar exit, the roads towards her house. It was funny how home made you still feel like a kid. Even though she was in the middle of building a family of her own. She directed Raf to the mid-century bungalow tucked in amongst several over sized mansions.

Lights were on in the kitchen and living room and she could smell spices and lamb as they went up the walk. Nazzie was holding tightly to her hand and Kam did her best to exude an air of calm. Stressing out the kid was not okay.

She knocked politely, then opened the door and stuck her head in. "Mom? Dad? We're here.”

Her mother came out of the kitchen, and stopped when she saw them. She looked at Kam, and then Raf, and then settled her eyes on Nazzie. “Oh, isn’t she precious.”

Kam crouched down. "Nazneen, this is my mom, Muneeba Khan."

Nazzie stepped forward a fraction of an inch, clutching her stuffed hippo. "Hello," she said, in accented English. She had a good handful of English words she was using regularly, mostly toy and snack related. But she'd picked up "hello" and "goodbye" pretty early.

Her mother knelt down herself. “Hello,” she replied. Then in Urdu she asked, “Who’s this?” as she pointed to the hippo.

"This is Poppy," she said. "My friend Maggie said she's the color of a poppy. That's a flower.”

“That is a flower. I have poppies in my garden. Wait until spring and you’ll see them.”

That got an enormous grin and her mother straightened, now looking at Raf. It was the sort of appraising look she gave melons at the farmer's market and Kamala braced herself for the pronouncement.

"Well, he's good looking," she said finally, in Urdu. "I don't like blondes, myself, but he doesn't look as ghastly as most of them."

Oh, crap, she hadn't told her he could speak Hindi. "Mom-"

"He's very tall, though. That might be a problem. Later. You'll have nice healthy babies though-"

" _Mom!_ "

She looked irritated. "What?"

"He understands Urdu," Kamala hissed.

Her mother’s eyes widened and she blinked a couple of times. She fussed with her head scarves like she was considering just pulling them over her face. “Well. . . I didn’t say anything that wasn’t factual.”

“I am both very tall and unreasonably blond,” Raf replied with a disarming smile.

Mom studied him a moment more, still smoothing her head wrap. "You speak that very well," she told him.

“Thank you.” He smiled. “Some years ago, I embarked on a project to learn the world’s major languages. I started with Chinese and worked my way down, so I knew Hindi. Kamala filled in the rest of the gaps.”

Kamala couldn't quite read her mother's expression, but thought she might be impressed. "I suppose with your life such projects are necessary." Kam had explained Raf being Asgardian and over a thousand on the phone. It had been the only thing she could think of to stop the "what do you mean he's not Muslim?!" lecture.

Before he could reply, Kamala's dad appeared in the kitchen doorway. "Is this the alien?" he asked with a delighted grin.

“Good evening, sir,” Raf said. “I am of Asgard.”

Her father looked damn near giddy as he came forward to shake his hand. "Very nice to meet you. Very nice. Yusuf Khan.”

“Raf Ingesson,” he replied, shaking his hand. He didn’t ever use his full first name unless he had to.

He pulled Kamala into a hug before beaming down at Nazzie. "Hello there. Come sit, we have a lot to talk about, I think.”

“Undoubtedly,” Raf said. “I hear there’s food?”

"Yes, NeeNee has been cooking all day. It's how she copes with stress." Her mother swatted at him and he kissed her cheek affectionately. "It's true, darling." He waved a hand, then reached down to offer it to Nazzie. "Come sit. Do you like lamb?”

She nodded, and reached up to take his hand. “I like lamb.”

"Excellent. My wife makes the best lamb in New Jersey.

Kam smiled, watching her dad lead Nazzie into the dining room and get settled into a chair. Her mother went into the kitchen to get the food and Kam followed her to help.

Mom had clearly made a feast. There was roast lamb and vegetables. Rice, naan bread. Yogurt and cucumber sauce. And a bubbling pot of _kadhi_ warming on the stove.

At Kamala's arched brow her mother said, "You told me he eats like you do. If I'm to feed two of you, I have to do it right."

Smiling, she kissed her cheek, picked up the plate of naan and bowl of rice. "Thank you, Mom.”

“Does he make you happy?” she asked.

"He does," she said softly. "Very happy.”

She squared her shoulders and nodded. “I never expected a blond son-in-law. But then I never expected a superhero daughter, either.”

As surprises went, the first was probably less traumatic than the second. "Thank you," she said again, sincerely.

“What a mother wants most is for her children to be good people, and to be happy. You’ll understand the feeling soon enough.”

Kam nodded and they carried to food out to the table to find Raf telling her father one of his stories about his first wife. Well, not specifically about the wife, but about the long series of bribes he had to give to marry her. Her father was laughing merrily, so hopefully he wasn't taking notes.

Nazzie waved at her, and reached out for a piece of naan. 

They brought the rest of the food out and passed it around to fill plates. It had looked like way too much food in the kitchen but once she and Raf had taken their portions it looked much more reasonable.

Her mother let them get a few bites in before speaking. "Now. I know you explained on the phone. But you said you had to get married to keep Nazneen?"

Kamala nodded and swallowed. "I need to adopt her. International adoption is a mess of red tape, but with my Pakistani citizenship I can do it domestically. But they won't adopt to a single woman.”

Her father frowned. “So this is a. . . fake marriage?”

“ _No_.” Raf said vehemently, immediately.

"We'd been talking about the future together for a long time," Kamala said. Longer than she'd realized, now that she thought about it. "Marriage was definitely in the cards. The issue with Nazzie just made it more urgent.”

“I am very serious about your daughter,” Raf said. 

Dad nodded, looking thoughtful, then turned to Kam. "And you're all right with a husband who won't grow older? Who you will leave behind?"

Oh, she'd really hoped to have more food in her before dropping this particular bombshell. It was out now and she needed to tackle it. "Dad. Mom. Um, there's some things about me and my. . . powers that I haven't told you." She took a deep breath. "I'm going to live a very long time.”

They exchanged a look. “How long?” Mom asked.

"Last time I was in Wakanda they did some calculations. They think I've only aged a few months since the vibranium. If that ratio holds. . . I'm looking at a couple thousand years.”

Dad dropped his fork. Mom gasped and put her hand over her mouth. Raf leaned over and took her hand. Into the stricken silence, he said, “I will live that long as well. We will age together.”

"I know it's a lot to handle," Kamala said. "And I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier. I needed time to deal with it myself. In my defense, I've only known how long a couple of months.”

“I am glad you will have company for whatever the future holds,” her mother said finally. “And as a mother I am glad you I won’t have to worry about losing you. Once was enough for a lifetime.”

"There is something to be said for a bullet proof daughter," her father agreed, with a smile.

Relief poured through Kam like a drug. She hadn't realized how hard that was to carry until it was gone. She gave Raf's hand a little squeeze and focused on not tearing up.

Dad reached for her other hand. "How about we enjoy some of this delicious dinner."

"That sounds like a great idea," she agreed.

By the end of the evening they'd made plans for another dinner next weekend, so Raf could meet her brother and his fiancé. Nazzie fell asleep on the couch, and Raf draped her over his shoulder as they walked out to their car.

"That went better than expected," Kam admitted once they were on the road.

"It did. Your parents are good people. And I'm telling you. . . grandchildren, man."

"She did seem to help a lot, didn't she?" Nazzie had probably needed this more than Kam did. Far as she could tell, the little girl didn't remember her grandparents at all.

Raf smiled. "They certainly stuffed her with treats. As all grandparents should do."

"My brother will be happy. Maybe Mom will give them some breathing space to produce their offspring."

"We should figure out when we're doing this shindig. And how big of a shindig will it be?"

"Well, we can't get married by an Imam, that might cut down some of the shindig." She sighed. "Realistically, we should do it as soon as we can get a license. The sooner we start adoption proceedings for Nazzie the better I'll sleep."

"Darcy and Cal got married at the courthouse. Or city hall. Something like that."

"Yes." Kam had always pictured her wedding to be a bit more elaborate than that. The henna party with her mom and aunts. All her friends in sarees. Maybe somewhere outside with tons of flowers and trees. But all of that took time and planning, which she didn't have. Nazzie was more important. "I'll talk to her tomorrow, see what we need to do."

"We can still throw a big thing," he said. "After we get the paperwork."

She nodded. "That might even be more fun. Less pressure."

"We should still buy ourselves something fancy to wear. Just for the ceremony."

That would probably ease some of her pain. "I can do that."

"Except I don't want to wear a tuxedo. They're the stupidest clothing item modern people have ever invented."

"That's fine. You can wear what you like. I'm going to wear a sari."

"I will find something appropriate that at least sort of coordinates, but doesn't look too ridiculous given how blond I am."

She laughed. "It's too bad you're Nordic and not Celtic. A kilt would add a certain air of surreality."

"I'm sure I could whip up a ridiculous Asgardian outfit, if that would help."

"That would probably be hilarious."

"Big metal helmet. They're very into those."

Grinned, she asked, "Wings or horns?"

"I've seen them with both."

"I'd probably have wings. 'Cause of the running."

He paused while he merged onto the parkway. "We could have a small party. Up in the penthouse. I'm sure Ada would let us."

"Ada will be _thrilled_." She was very into them all pairing off together for some reason. "I think that'll be nice. Something with our closest friends. Then once everything is settled with the adoption we can have a big party celebrating our family."

"Sounds like a plan."

Having a plan was good. It settled things in her head. Telling her parents had done the same. It was still huge and complicated and she was dreading whatever they would need to do to get the adoption underway. But she had a plan and Raf to help her get through it. She felt, for the first time since Sharon had told her about Nazzie's uncle, that things were going to be okay.

Once her family had been told, Raf and Kamala told the rest of the team. They explained that they were going to have a courthouse ceremony and a small party in the penthouse, assuming that was okay with Ada.

Ada, for her part, stared at them and frowned. "The penthouse isn't a good reception space. We can find you a venue."

"That's sweet," Kam said. "But we're sort of on a time limit. I need to go to Pakistan and start adoption paperwork as soon as possible."

"Uncle Tony threw my parents a fancy wedding on a week's notice. Have you told the grown-ups? This is kind of a Darcy thing. Did you call Wakanda yet? You know they'll want to come. Wanda's an ordained minister. She married my parents. And her brother."

"I. . . no, I haven't called yet, were were telling people here, first."

"You should, they'll need to make flight arrangements and they have a bazillion kids."

And just like that, their small, simple, courthouse wedding started to snowball into something much larger. Darcy immediately started calling venues that owed the Avengers a favor. Wanda insisted she officiate and the girls planned and coordinated sari shopping with Kamala's mother, all without her having to lift a finger.

They couldn't get her extended family over in a week's time, but her Aunties from the neighborhood came for a henna party the night before the wedding. So did the women of the tower, though they needed the proceedings explained to them.

Ada had googled, apparently. There was a part of the festivities where the women tried to make the bride cry—so she brought a bag of onions and a knife.

"You know that's not going to work on her," Tess said. "She's bullet proof, I'm pretty sure she's onion proof."

This produced a face that was damn near a pout, but Kamala's mom patted her on the arm. "It was a good try, sweetie."

"Seems bad to make a bride sad before her wedding. Shouldn't she be happy?"

"Well, in the old times she could be moving from her family and village to her husband's. So it was the last night she would have with her family. It was happy, but sad at the same time."

"Kamala is moving down the hall."

"Ada!" Kate called. "Be less literal."

She huffed a little and Kam shooed her towards the food table. "Have some candy."

"She likes to engineer things," Kate said.

Darcy came over to Kam with her phone in her hand. "So they called me earlier today, but I didn't want to tell you until they were actually in the building, just in case. . . But the dresses are here."

She resisted squealing out loud. "Everyone's?"

"It had better be. I really don't want to have to drive to Jersey to pick anything up. If I want Cal to come I have to take the stupid bridge."

Kam did a little dance, she couldn't help it. "Where are they? Should we have a fashion show?"

"FRIDAY," she called at the ceiling. "Have someone with muscles who's not Raf go down and get the rack of clothes in the lobby."

"Right away."

She still couldn't believe they'd found a shop who could get four bridesmaid sarees, her wedding sari and one for tonight all ready in under a week. But apparently Darcy and enough money could accomplish great things.

Eli arrived ten minutes later, pushing a rolling rack of plastic garment bags. Kamala counted seven, and was about to ask when Darcy rifled through and pulled one off. "Take that," she said, handing it back to Eli. He left and Darcy pushed the rack further into the room. "They're labeled. If we're manhandling the dresses we should do it before anyone has henna."

"Bridesmaids!" Kam called. "Come try on your cultural appreciation."

Kate, Tess, Cassie and Ada promptly lined up to dig out their dresses and filed into her spare room and bathroom to change. Kam found the dress she'd picked out for her henna night and went to her bedroom, her mother and aunts trailing along to help her.

She was still a little in awe this had turned into a real wedding.

More people had arrived by the time she emerged. Nat and Clint had flown to Wakanda to pick up Wanda and Pietro and their families, who had wanted to come back for the wedding. She didn't know if they'd be able to make the henna party, but Ora and Wanda were out there with their older daughters—who came sprinting over to hug her. 

"They're going to the kids party downstairs," Ora said. "But they wanted to come see you first."

Kam looked over at Darcy, who said, "We were leaving the men with seventeen children. There's a balloon artist, a face painter, and like 20 pizzas down in the daycare."

"You're awesome."

"Getting shit done is my superpower."

Kam gave out hugs and kisses, including Ora and Wanda. "Thank you so much for coming."

"We wouldn't have missed it," Wanda said.

Agata tugged on Ora's arm, bouncing excitedly. "Mommy, can I show her my surprise? Please? Please?"

Ora looked consternated for a moment, then said. "Okay." She looked at Kam. "Pietro wanted you to see in person." She waved a hand. "Everybody take a step back."

When there was space, Agata held her arms out in a dancer's position, and Kam thought she was about to see some sort of ballet move. Then she went up on one foot and spun. She spun so fast she blurred, like helicopter blades. Apt, as she actually lifted off the ground. There was a chorus of gasps.

"So turns out it is hereditary," Wanda said. She tossed up an energy barrier so Agata wouldn't hit the ceiling.

She stopped spinning and Kamala reached out to catch her. "I am very impressed," she told Agata. "Is it only spinning?"

She shook her head. "I can run, too."

"Maybe later we can have a race."

"She's not allowed to run indoors," Ora said. "She's still working on stopping."

"I made a hole in my wall," Agata told her.

"I remember those days." Of course, her early days had been filled with a lot more terror and government testing, but there was no reason to mention that to the kid. "We'll find a park or run way to race on."

"It's a nice thought, isn't it?" Wanda replied, like she could read her mind. Well, Wanda _could_ read her mind. "Figuring your powers out with the help of family and friends who are just like you?"

"Much better than the alternative," Kamala agreed.

Wanda leaned closer and said, “The rest of them haven’t come out yet because they are struggling with the logistics of their clothing. You may want to send some aunts in there.”

She grinned and patted her arm, before turning to her mom. "Can you and Aunt Amira help Cassie and Ada? I'll go talk to Kate." She was pretty sure she was the only one who knew how to put them on that Kate would let touch her.

Once everyone was dressed, they had a little fashion show. Something about seeing them all in their wedding wear made it all feel much more real. And they hadn’t even gotten to the henna yet.

Pictures were taken, then everyone changed out of their wedding clothes and got settled in the living room to start the henna. Kamala's aunt stationed herself at her side to start on her hands, while various other neighborhood aunts and cousins claimed a bridesmaid. The room was full of chatter and laughter and a couple hilarious squeaks as the cold henna hit warm skin.

Once it was done, Kamala was basically immobile while it dried. This, of course, was when her mother decided to sit down next to her and bring up the topic of her wedding night.

"Mom, this is really not-"

Her mother waved her words away. "I know, I know. You've been out in the world and you think you know everything. But alone on your wedding night if a different thing. It can be very intimidating."

That was probably a good point. And, well, what was the harm? If her mom wanted this particular bonding moment she could humor her. 

“The way sex is portrayed in the media is very. . . unrealistic. In a lot of ways. You’re an adult and I don’t expect you to have sequestered yourself in a little PG-13 bubble, but misinformation is only slightly more useful than no information. Though no information is pretty bad. I have a cousin who ran screaming from her room on her wedding night because she’d been expecting something a little more like what you’d see on a very young boy while changing a diaper.”

Kam tried not to get too distracted wondering which cousin that was. "I'm assuming Raf is more or less proportional," she offered.

“I’ve heard that’s a fair assumption, but not a guarantee. And that’s not even really what I wanted to discuss. It was more I wanted to warn you that men and women operate at different speeds. Women heat up like. . .crockpots. Men are more like microwaves.”

It took a second to process what the hell that could possibly mean. Then she was forced to cover her laugh in a cough. "Well, I will keep that in mind. And I appreciate the talk. But to be honest, Tess has already given me some advice." Tess was the official go-to for sex stuff among the girls. Nothing like in-depth graphic advice given with the clinical detachment of a medical professional. Plus she was married, which would hopefully placate Mom.

“Well, as long as someone has.”

"And Raf is very nice and considerate of me. I'm sure it'll all be fine." If she was honest, she was a little nervous about the whole thing. But kitchen metaphors weren't going to help with that.

Her mother patted her arm. “I know you will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need you to appreciate that one of our friends got the kitchen gadget sex talk and we have never let her forget it.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, it's still _technically_ Monday and it's really fucking hot so lemme 'lone.

The day before the wedding, no one would let Raf even see Kamala. Apparently it was some sort of thing. He couldn't remember if Helen had done that—he didn’t think so, they’d gotten married a San Francisco City Hall. When he went to bed that night, he didn’t know if their goodnight call was against the rules—but it never hurt to ask. “FRIDAY, are you allowed to put me through?”

There was a pause, then Kam's voice came over the speakers. "Hi, honey.”

“Hi. Nazzie go down okay?” He usually helped with bedtime.

"Yes. I think the kid's party tuckered her out good. She asked about you, though. I said she'd see you tomorrow.”

“Going to be a long day for her. For all of us.”

"Tess assures me it'll feel like it's over in a few minutes.”

He chuckled. “Only afterward.”

"I suppose you would have more data to compare." He heard shuffling and a sigh that meant she'd climbed into bed. "Does having done it multiple times cut down on the nerves?”

“Depends. . . Helen and I got married kind of spontaneously, and we were already sleeping together. With Fatima I was terrified, but that was partially about her family, and the fact that we had 800 guests.”

"Given enough time and budget my mom could totally have scrounged up 800 guests.”

“We’re celebrities. We could have held it in Yankee Stadium and filled the seats.”

"I feel like what we ended up with is probably a nice compromise between that and the courthouse.”

“I’m glad they made it happen,” he said. “A real wedding.”

"We have excellent friends.”

“I can’t wait to see you tomorrow,” he said quietly.

He could hear the smile in her voice when she spoke. "Me neither. I've gotten quite used to your presence.”

“Be nice not to have to talk through FRIDAY.” And. . . other things. 

"This conversation would be a lot more convenient in person." He thought she might be deliberately ignoring the other implications before she added, "My mom tried to have the wedding night conversation with me.”

“Was it as horrifying as I’m imagining? Were the words Wifely Duty used? One of my wives got a ten minute lecture on how she should always put out, but never ever look down. And if she did look down, to never comment.”

"No, Mom is aware what century it is. Though apparently there are other in my family who weren't so lucky. It wasn't that bad. She told me not to believe everything the media told me about sex. And that men were like microwaves and women were like crock pots.”

He smothered a laugh. “That’s not. . . entirely inaccurate. Though I am not, technically, a man.”

"Dare I ask what small appliance Asgardians are like? Vitamix? Toaster oven?”

“I admit I have never contemplated which kitchen item best represents my sex life.”

"Well, that will give you something to think about while waiting for the ceremony to start tomorrow.”

He laughed out loud now. “Will I have to sleep on the couch if I can’t come up with one?”

"Now you might have to.”

Well, now he _had_ to come up with something. He got out of bed and went into his kitchen, knowing FRIDAY would follow. “Did you talk to any of the girls about it?”

"Tess and I had a crash course in sex a couple days ago. She's our go-to for sex talk.”

“I wonder if I should have suggested you talk to Jane Foster.” He got himself a snack while he was in the kitchen. He considered making cookies, and then an appliance occurred to him. “Have you ever made bread with a KitchenAid stand mixer?”

"I have made many things with my KitchenAid," she told him, rolling with the apparent non sequitur.

“When you use it to knead bread dough with a hook, it can shake the mixer so much that it can bounce it’s way right off the counter. Those things are heavy, that’ll crack tile.”

There was a pause. "You know, you're not suppose to _try_ to frighten the bride before the wedding night.”

“Aren’t you bullet proof?”

"Yes, but getting shot isn't exactly the top of my kink list.”

“You have to take the mixer as a whole. Many options for speeds. Can run for a long time. If not careful and high settings, may break things.” 

Another pause, then he heard her laughing. "Well, my interest is piqued.”

“Being interested will probably help your wifely duty go more smoothly,” he teased.

"Tess mentioned that." She cleared her throat. "She also told me not to get hung up on. . . insertion.”

“That’s very wise advice.” He paused. “Since we seem to be talking about this, it’s occurred to me that if you have a maidenhead—been about 50/50 in my experience—and it is as indestructible as the rest of you. . . we might have a problem.” 

She giggled again. "Mmm, unstoppable force meets immovable object.”

“Don’t worry, there are plenty of fun things to do. We’ll figure it out.”

"That was the basic gist of her advice, too. Also that lube was my friend. She gave me a bottle as a shower gift.”

“That’s good, the selection at the store was terrifying.”

"Aww! You were preparing.”

He laughed. “I know you usually enjoy my folksy anecdotes, but you really don’t want to hear all of the things I’ve used as lube over the course of my long life.”

"I spend my formative years reading fan fiction. I have seen things that cannot be unseen.”

He’d settled on a bowl of cereal, and sat at his table to eat it. “You know what, Kam? I think we’re going to be just fine.”

With a soft, affectionate little laugh, she said, "I think we will.”

They chatted, like they always did, until he finished his cereal and got back into bed. By then she was yawning. “We should get our beauty rest. Tomorrow is a big day.” He yawned himself. “Did I ever tell you everyone used to sleep in two shifts, and be awake in the middle of the night for an hour or two?”

"You have, yes. Maybe when we ever get a honeymoon we can give it a try.”

“We’re having a honeymoon in Sunny Pakistan.”

"Not exactly Stark's resort in Hawaii, but I'm sure we'll have fun.”

“We can have fun anywhere. I love you and I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”

"I love you back. I'll see you at the head of the aisle."

*

FRIDAY woke Kam up bright and early the next morning. She hadn't slept particularly well, nerves waking her up frequently. Any other night she might had gone over to Raf's to see if he wanted to join her in her insomnia. Even now, with a packed schedule before she had to head over to the venue, she thought about calling him.

Before she could talk herself into it, her bedroom door was flung open and Nazzie launched herself at her bed. "You're getting married!"

Nazzie was second only to Kam's mother for excitment about the wedding. "I am," she agreed, catching the girl in a big bear hug. "But first, we need a big breakfast."

Feeding them and gathering their things occupied her for a while. Her henna had mostly flaked off, leaving the dark dye on her skin. Every time she noticed the patterns it distracted her, thinking about the wedding.

Her mother called after breakfast, telling her she was on her way over. God knew how many extra people she was bringing.

Once she arrived - along with a gaggle of aunts and cousins - things became so hectic as to blur. The other girls came over and, much like the night before, people were split into rooms to help get dressed and do hair and make-up. The venue Darcy had found was a large warehouse - a raw space, she called it - that was being decorated for the wedding. Kam had been assured it would be gorgeous, but it wouldn't have the luxuries of a "wedding place" like a bride's rooms and such.

Kamala's wedding dress was a deep, rich red with grey and black accents. It took two aunts to help her into the layers of skirt and bodice. Sharon had come in with her big, digital camera and they managed to get a funny shot of her mother lacing up the back of the bodice with a foot on Kam's butt, like a Victorian maid. The veil and scarf were heavier than her normal hair coverings, but laid beautifully. Her mother had brought her wedding jewelry, a heavy necklace with red garnets and matching earrings. 

Tess poked her head in just as Kam was finishing her eye shadow. "The limo is waiting downstairs. We gotta hustle a bit.”

“We’re almost done,” her mother said before Kam could answer.

"Get everyone else mobilized," Kam called. There was enough of them involved that would buy her plenty of time.

They stopped for prayers as the last thing they did before leaving. She was grateful it was Tess who was herding them, because Tess was someone who could appreciate the value of a prayer before a life altering event and wouldn’t be hovering in the doorway trying to hide her impatience like some of the others.

"FRIDAY, where's Raf?" she asked as they headed for the door.

"He has already left the building."

Excellent. It would have sucked to have gone to all this trouble to have him see her last minute in the elevator.

Most of the others had made their way down, but she still had plenty of entourage in the elevator and crossing the Tower lobby. Some of the security staff whistled and clapped and she felt herself blushing even as she grinned.

They loaded into limos that took them across down. Nazzie chattered on about how much she loved her pretty dress. Kam had to admit, she looked adorable in her little sari. The drive seemed to take forever and no time at all. Tess was keeping the clock and assured her twice they had plenty of time.

Her limo pulled up behind the warehouse so she could sneak in without the crowd seeing her. She was tucked into a little side room near the reception space. She could hear the clatter of the caterers from one side and the roar of the crowd from the other.

People drifted in and out. Her mother and aunts went to go see family. Her bridesmaids took turns distracting her with jokes. Tess and Kate left and returned with Sharon and the flowers so they could take some more pictures.

Then Tess announced it was time and Cassie ran to go find Kam's father. It was a little weird to have the rest of them running and fetching things and people. Usually it was her job to do that.

Her parents came in the room, and her father—who hadn’t seen her—put his hand over his mouth. “You’re all grown up.”

Up until that point she felt she'd been handling this well, with a mix of joy and nerves. Now her dad was absolutely going to make her cry. She dredged up a watery smile and nodded. "I think so.”

“Don’t cry, honey, you have too much makeup on,” her mother said.

She sniffled. "Thanks, Mom."

Her dad came forward and gave her a hug. She wrapped her arms around him tightly and breathed in his scent.

"Last chance to blow this joint and run to Atlantic City for the weekend," he whispered, making her giggle.

"I have been jonesing for some slot machine fun.”

“You could run us there before they even noticed we were gone.”

"Not in this dress, I couldn’t."

They went out of the room, into the space where the ceremony was. She was stunned to find it had been done up like some sort of. . .magically lit forest. Literally there were trees, and greenery hanging from the ceiling with little twinkling lights everywhere. For a moment she stood taking it all in. She couldn't believe something like this was possible, let alone done for her.

"You have truly remarkable friends," he father commented as they got into place to wait for their cue.

"I do," she agreed. "They're family.”

She could see Raf now, standing in front of the elaborately decorated dais. He was wearing a red, white, and gold sherwani—traditional Pakistani groom’s attire, probably the contents of the extra garment bag that had been rushed away. He was also wearing an elaborate gold helmet.

It was mercifully more wing than horns, but also had a raised stripe down the center that was reminiscent of a mohawk. Kam clapped a hand over her mouth to smother her reaction, but she could hear Nazzie giggling as she walked down the aisle to him.

Since he had no family, she saw Thor had come to stand with him where his parents would be—perhaps the closest thing he had to relatives. Thor, she noticed, was wearing a _truly_ ridiculous helmet.

Their wedding pictures were going to be _awesome_.

The bridesmaids took their turn down the aisle, sitting in the front row of seats on her side of the aisle. Then the music changed and her dad gave her hand a little squeeze before they started down the aisle.

When they reached the front, Raf hugged both her parents, and then reached out both hands for her. “Hi, stranger.”

"Long time no see," she replied, sliding her hands into his. "Nice helmet.”

“This is traditional Asgardian wedding attire,” he told her. “You look gorgeous. Even if I can only sort of see you.”

She grinned. "Thank you."

Wanda cleared her throat softly to get their attention and they both jumped a little. For a moment there, she'd forgotten they weren't alone. With a little squeeze of their hands they turned to face her.

The ceremony was simple, not religious, but Wanda had clearly attempted to include as many muslim and Pakistani traditions as she could.

"Do you accept Hrafnsvartr, son of Inge as your husband."

Feeling giddy, Kam nodded. "I accept."

"Do you accept him?"

"I accept."

"Do you accept him?"

"I accept." On the third time, she slipped the heavy gold ring onto his finger.

Wanda turned to Raf. "Do you accept Kamala, daughter of Yusuf as your wife?"

"I accept."

They did his three times, then he slipped the ring onto her hand.

Smiling, Wanda put a hand on each of their shoulders. "And so I make you man and wife.”

Raf reached out and lifted her veil, so she could see him clearly. His helmet was even worse than it looked through the red tule. He bent and kissed her forehead, then stole a very fast, chaste kiss from her lips. The crowd cheered, but again, for a moment it felt like just the two of them.

He rested his forehead on hers. “Hello, wife. Are you as hungry as I am?”

"Starving," she confirmed. "Let's get this party started.”

There was a lot of food, and a lot of dancing. She hadn’t seen the guest list but it was at least two or three hundred people. Everyone had come from Wakanda, even the people she hadn’t expected. It was just the sort of wedding she pictured as a little girl, reception hall packed with all the people she loved.

She and Raf did a round of hellos and hugs before finding somewhere relatively calm and quiet to sit and pick at the plates of food that had appeared before them. Kam rested her head on her husband's shoulder and sighed. "This was a perfect day.”

“Better than a quickie at the courthouse, eh?”

"Much. Better than anything I could have pictured.”

Across the room Nazzie was dancing with a herd of other kids. She saw Kamala looking and waved. Raf said, “I never would have imagined this when I met you under a collapsed roadway.”

She laughed. "That seems like so long ago now.”

“Fate is very strange. And occasionally awesome.”

Tilting her head back to look at him, she asked, "Do you believe in fate? That we were meant to find each other?”

“Asgardians believe there is a purpose to everything. Whatever happens to us, it’s for a reason—even if it takes a long time to see.”

"That's nice." She resettled against his shoulder, looking out at the crowd of very different people who loved them both. "I like that.”

“Maybe it’s all kind of the same thing. One god, many gods, the universe. All shaping the direction of our lives.”

"It's a comfort, I think. Whoever is guiding it. I like having a purpose. I like knowing that I was meant to find these people. And you.”

“It made it easier, being stranded here, believing it would some day make sense. It was a comfort, to a terrified kid.”

She squeezed his hand, cuddling close. "At least you know you won't be alone again.”

“You have no idea the relief that is.” He chuckled. “Or, actually, you probably do.”

"I have a glimmer. I don't think I'd reached that part of my existential crisis yet, though.”

He tucked a piece of hair back under her scarf. “I am very happy I will be able to spare you from having a day where everyone you love is gone.”

"Thank you," she said sincerely. "I look forward to exploring with you.”

“I’m looking forward to all _kinds_ of exploring,” he replied with a grin.

Cheeks heating, she returned the grin. "That, too.” He leaned down to kiss her, because he could.

The party broke up slowly. Kam's family made their way back to New Jersey. Her parents were the last to go, her mother stopping to hug her tightly and a little too long on the way. Sharon and Steve had volunteered to take Nazzie for a sleep over so they could have a little privacy.

They went to his apartment, mostly because hers looked like a bomb went off from the wedding preparations. She’d been in the public areas of his place before, but never beyond. It didn’t make any practical sense, really, to draw the line there, but she had to draw it somewhere. And that’s what her gut had told her. He’d never been in her bedroom either. There was just something intimate about it. 

One of her family members had brought over a bag for her, and she picked it up to carry it back there. Raf went as far as the doorway and stopped. “Uh. . .”

She knew before she saw it what it was. She’d told FRIDAY to open the door for her mother, and her mother had clearly let the family in to decorate the bedroom. It was a Pakistani tradition she had specifically asked to _not_ do. Raf was particular about people touching his stuff, and also from a different culture—she thought he might be weirded out by an extravagant ENJOY YOUR SEX send off from her family.

They had moved what looked like an entire flower shop in there. The bed had acquired a canopy, draped in tule bed hangings and ropes of flowers. Petals covered the floor and what she could see of the bed.

Covering her eyes with a hand she let out a little sigh. "I'm _so_ sorry.”

“Don’t be. Though I gotta tell you, there’s no way I can live up to this setting. It’s been decades, I’m pretty rusty.”

She laughed, shaking her head. "Well, how will I know, really?”

He laughed, too. “Trust me, bad sex is obvious even to a novice.”

"Good to know. We're off to a great start.”

He wandered further into the room. “I just wanted to say, if you’re tired or too nervous or. . . anything, really. We can just sleep.”

She watched him wander. He left a little trail in the flower petals. Idly, she wondered if all those aunts and cousins planned to come back and clean this mess up in the morning. Finally, she lifted her hands and started unpinning her scarf and veil. "Come on. I was hoping for at least a little making out.”


	13. Chapter 13

Raf turned back to reply to her, and found himself rooted in his spot instead, just watching her. She carefully pulled her all the fabric draping her head off, reaching to lay it across the chair at the foot of his bed. Her hair was all pinned up in a fancy updo. He cleared his throat and managed, “If that was for me, you could have left it down.”

She gave him a crooked little grin. "I was not given a vote in hair and make-up.”

He came closer, because he wanted to touch her. “Can I help?”

"By all means. There's way too many pins.”

“Pins I have lots of experience with.” He came up behind her, taking a deep breath of her scent. Carefully he began pulling the pins from her hair. It fell loose one lock at a time, silky and wavy from being up all day. It hung just past her shoulders when he was done, dark and thick. He ran his fingers through it, thinking he never appreciated doing so more. “This is worth the wait.”

He heard her sigh softly and she swayed back into him. "Something to be said for anticipation.”

Raf kissed the top of her head and nuzzled her a hair. “We are both wearing very heavy and scratchy clothes.”

"At least you took off your helmet. I was concerned I might lose an eye.”

“I’ll have you know that’s a very serious Asgardian tradition.” He searched for the zipper on her dress but couldn’t find it.

"It laces," she told him, just as his fingers found the end of a cord. "Hang on." She shrugged off the top layer of dress that covered her shoulders, revealing a lace up bodice that brought back memories.

“These I know how to operate.” But first he leaned down and kissed her shoulder. He could feel her shiver at the touch and goosebumps raised on her skin. Grinning a little at the reaction, he carefully started unlacing her top. The deep breath she took when it was halfway done was apparently universal. “Better?” he whispered, kissing the back of her neck.

"Much." She reached back and he felt her fingers in his hair, stroking and cupping the back of his head. 

She had a slip of some sort underneath, just a layer of silk so thin it was nearly translucent. He slid his hand over it, tracing her spine. “Can I take the dress off?”

"Of course." She managed to sound nervous, teasing and exasperated, all in two words. It was rather impressive.

He slid it off her shoulders. It was even heavier than it looked, and for a moment they were distracted by the simple logistics of getting it off her. She shimmied a bit, faster than he could follow, and it puddled down on the ground, leaving her in what looked like a pair of red drawers.

“This outfit gets more interesting by the minute.”

She laughed. "There's just more layers. We'll be here till morning.”

“Eventually I’m just going to get scissors.”

"Just as well. I probably won't wear it again.”

He came closer, leaning down to kiss her. For the moment, this was undressed enough. She made a soft sound and wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing herself up against him. She was warm and soft and they fit perfectly together. He tangled his fingers in her hair and the kiss took off, neither of them trying for any sort of restraint. She was entirely his.

Her hands slid down his shoulders to flatten on his chest. When the broke for air she murmured, "We should do something about your heavy, scratchy clothes.”

“I was kind of hoping you’d rip them off in a blur. If I’m being honest.”

She tilted her head back to look at him. “Really?"

He grinned at her. “I find every part of you hot. Even the speed.”

Her expression was just priceless. Just utter, unbridled delight. She studied him a moment and he could almost see her doing calculations in her head. Then she nodded and blurred. He felt wind and a few tugs here and there and in a moment he was naked, save for his boxers and she was standing in front of him again, cheeks pink and hair wind blown. There was probably something useful to say, but the hell if he could think of it. So he cupped her face in has hands and kissed her.

She groaned, hands sinking into his hair. He tasted eagerness in her now, overshadowing the nerves. After a moment, her hands started to wander, flattening on his shoulders and running down his chest, exploring him. He clutched the back of her slip in his fists, pulling it taught. “Can I rip this?” he mumbled between kisses.

"Yes," she breathed, pressing a kiss to his jaw. He gave a yank and it split down the middle. He ripped the front just to get it off her. He wanted to see her, touch her, taste her. He wanted her bare breasts pressed against his chest. Kam shuddered, as if she'd heard the thought.

He pulled her tight against him, skin to skin. She wrapped her arms around him, then hiked a leg over his hip. He cupped her ass through the soft silk of her drawers and straightened, lifting her up. Her other leg wrapped around him and she made a very contented noise.

“You weigh nothing,” he murmured. “Like a feather.” He carried her over to the bed. “But somehow you are steel.” He stopped, something occurring to him. “Hey. I can’t hurt you.”

She lifted her head and grinned. "No, no you cannot.”

“I’ve never been able to just let go before.” If there had been any blood left in his brain before, it was certainly gone now. He moved the bed hangings—talk about nostalgia—so he could set her on the petal strewn bed. He didn’t really care right then.

When he put her down, she hung onto him and he let her pull him down on top of her. She was so small, his instinct was still to brace himself of his arm, even as he let the kiss get a little rougher. That earned him a sexy little groan.

He kissed her jaw, her throat, her collarbone. “Kind of nice, this secluded little space.”

"It has its perks," she admitted. "Privacy having been in short supply.”

He moved a little further down so he could touch and kiss her breasts. There was a part of him that was still reeling that this was actually happening, after so long. She shivered, nipples tightening into peaks. Unable to resist, he drew one into his mouth and felt as much as heard her moan. He skimmed his hand down to the waistband of her drawers. “If at any point you want me to stop. . .”

"You will be the first to know," she assured him. He liked that she didn't insist she'd be fine. There would be no muscling through this. He slipped his hand under her waistband, giving her a moment to tell him to slow down. When she didn’t, he kept going, finding her very wet.

The sound she made was almost a purr, hips lifting up to him. "Yes, please.”

“Show me what you like.” He paused. “Do you know what you like?”

She laughed. "I do, but I don't think you can replicate it.”

He stroked his fingers along her sex. “Guess I’ll just have to wing it.”

Another purr. "I have every faith in you.”

He tugged the drawers down, leaving her completely naked. Then he took his time, kissing his way down her body, tracing, mapping, tasting every inch he could reach. She fidgeted a little restlessly but let him go at his speed. It was fun, finding the places that made her gasp or giggle or curl her toes.

When a shudder passed through her she vibrated so fast she blurred a little. “Okay, that’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Her laugh was a little breathless. "Yeah. That happens sometimes.”

He rubbed his fingers in slow circles over her clit, making her vibrate again. “What else can you do?”

"Um. I can use my fingers like a vibrator. Not sure it that does _you_ any good. . .”

“Probably not, but it would be fun to watch.” He slid one, then two fingers inside her. This was fun, too. She groaned and he felt her muscles flex around him. She was tight, but very wet and clearly relaxed. They also seemed to have gotten lucky on the maidenhead front. “Good?” he murmured.

"Very good," she confirmed. He moved his fingers, stroking her slowly while his thumb found her clit again. She mumbled his name, shuddering hard and sinking his fingers into his hair.

He kissed her, and repeated the same motion, to the same reaction. “Again,” he whispered. It took a few more strokes, then her hips bucked and she vibrated again. He kissed her thigh in encouragement and earned a little whimper. Then another. Then she gave an almost surprised cry and blurred, body clenching on his fingers.

Raf grinned as she re-solidified. “That’s my girl.”

She blew out a breath, looking a little shell shocked. " _Allahu akbar_ ," she muttered.

“Well. . . some of that was me,” he replied.

Kam laughed and gave his hair a little tug. "Come here.”

He kissed her again, sinking into it as she wrapped her arms around him.

After a few moments of just kissing, she whispered, "I don't want to stop.”

There was a rough edge to his chuckle. “Me neither.”

"Good." She slid one of her legs around his waist, opening up for him. She kissed him and he felt one of her hands snake down and curl around his erection, stroking curiously a moment, before shifting to line him with him.

For a moment the touch was all he could pay attention to, then he rolled them so she was on top of him. “This will go easiest.”

She looked a little skeptical, braced above him. Then she took a deep breath and sat up, readjusting. Glancing between them, she took him in her hand again and seemed to get distracted, curling her fingers around him. She rocked onto her heels and her other hand joined in until he realized she was trying to measure him. “It’s reasonably normal sized,” he commented.

"Well, I wouldn't know, would I?" She managed to sound rather prim, despite being naked with both hands on his cock. "You're tall, I figured there'd be a proportion thing.”

“Yes,” he hissed at her. “That’s normal. Hence.” He gestured vaguely. “Honey, my brain isn’t really working.”

She grinned, looking a little bit smug, and gave him a little squeeze that did nothing for his mental capacity. Then she mercifully lifted up onto her knees and shifted so was above his erection. He felt the heat of her sex on the head, then she slowly sank down. Maddeningly slowly. “Fuck,” he gasped, louder than he intended. Nothing had felt this good in a long time.

Kam giggled a little, which seemed to relax her enough to take him the last few inches. He felt her body pulse around him as she took a moment to collect herself. Then she flattened her palms on his chest and started to rock on him experimentally. 

He closed his eyes a moment, just to feel. Then he reached blindly, finding her clit with his fingers. The stroke made her shiver again. Her nails dug into his skin and she moved a little faster. He lifted his hips up to her and together they found a rhythm that worked. She moved faster than a normal woman probably could have, and every time he stroked her clit he felt the vibrations rock through him.

When her motions grew clumsy he knew she had to be close and gripped her hip, pulling her down as the orgasm poured through her, making her blur. It seemed to vibrate him along with her, and he felt the sensation everywhere. He got only a few breaths and then he was coming with her.

He was still trying to catch his breath when she sank down onto his chest, nuzzling him affectionately.

“And we didn’t even break anything,” Raf murmured.

"Well, first time. Gotta work up to that.”

He rubbed her back, and tangled his fingers in her hair. “Worth the wait?”

"Mmm, very much. That was _awesome_.”

They drifted for a while after that, exhausted and bathing in the afterglow. Enjoying the fact that every part of their bodies touched. He was so comfortable he tried to ignore that he was getting hungry. He ignored it until his stomach growled.

Kam giggled and sat up. "Oh thank God. I didn't want to be the one to break the mood but I'm _starving_.”

He wrapped his arms around her and rolled to his feet with her in his arms. They’d eat naked. “I adore you.”

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she grinned. "We're a perfect fit.”

They broke the kitchen table.

*

Marriage was awesome.

Well, if Kam was being honest, most of her life hadn't really changed. But the things that had were, in fact, awesome. Sleeping next to Raf, waking up to him in the morning. Being able to have their bedtime conversation in person and tangled up together. They were small things, but made all the difference. They were partners, present in each others lives in a real and profound way.

Plus sex was even better than advertised.

They probably could have spent a week or two locked in his apartment entertaining each other. But there was Nazzie to think of and an adoption to get underway. So three days after the wedding they flew out to Pakistan to meet the coordinator Kamala had been speaking with and get started on making them officially a family.

They stopped in Switzerland at Raf’s insistence, he left her and Nazzie on the plane for a couple hours and came back with a very old looking box. Kam waited for him to get resettled and the plane to take off again before asking, "Are you going to tell us what's in the box?”

She watched him put on a pair of gloves, and then he carefully lifted out a book that looked twice as old as the box. “This is the marriage register from the mosque where Fatima and I got married.”

Her brows went up. "Wow. How old is that?”

“Five hundred years or so. Don’t breathe on it.” He opened it, very carefully. “I’m concerned our marriage would not be seen as legal in Pakistani law, and I wanted to bring proof that I am, technically, a Muslim.” He hovered his hand over the lines of Arabic text. “I had to convert. Fatima wasn’t religious, so she didn’t care, but I didn’t want to put you in a position of having to lie to your Imam. I figure the government is okay, though.”

"You know, the technicality probably would have been sufficient for my mother.”

“Feel free to tell her when we get back.” He pointed. “There it is. She made me use my real name. I don't have proof of her death, other than, you know, math.”

Kam wasn't really looking forward to explaining Asgardians and immortality to the nice adoption officials. She supposed it would have been harder had he not joined the team. "The New Thor" had made some pretty big headlines. "We'll figure it out.”

“Ada also gave me a suitcase full of cash. If bribery ends up on the table.”

What a remarkably Ada thing to do. "Ms. Chutani seemed to think it would be a mess of paperwork and formalities but should otherwise go smoothly. They already have the forms from Nazzie's uncle and we've proven to be suitable guardians.”

He squeezed her hand. “She also said that if they said no, to just grab her and go to Wakanda. Vision concurred that it was a nice place to be an international fugitive.” 

"I suppose it's good to have all the worst case scenarios covered.”

“If it _really_ came to it, Thor has told me Heimdal will open the bifrost for me if I call.”

"It'll be _fine_ ," she insisted. “Stop."

He cleared his throat. “Yes, ma’am.”

She wondered if that counted as their first fight.

Nazzie crawled in her lap and fell asleep an hour or two before they landed. It was morning in Pakistan, which meant it was the middle of the night in New York. Kamala rearranged her scarf to cover Nazzie's face so the sun wouldn't wake her as she carried her. 

“You want me to take her?” Raf asked.

"I'm okay," she said. "The luggage is probably more awkward.”

He seemed to agree, and went to get the luggage. “This is still an improvement on steamer trunks.”

She laughed. "The movies always makes travel in the past so glamorous. Ladies in big hats and trunks that turn into wardrobes. Are you going to ruin that for me now?”

“I can't believe I haven’t already done so. Clearly I haven’t gone into enough detail about my passage to America. Did I leave out the lack of sanitation? Or the part where after the shipwreck I had to swim ten miles to shore dragging a flotilla of passengers on hunks of wood like a speedboat pulling waterskis.”

"Think how fast I would have gotten them there," she said. "Had I been there.”

“That makes me feel better about getting on as boat.” He hefted up the suitcases. “Let’s go find our driver.”

The man had a sign holding her name, because no one wanted to spell Raf's. He was delighted they both spoke Urdu and cheerfully helped Raf with the bags, telling them how nice the weather had been and how adorable Nazzie was. Kam told him they were on their honeymoon and he didn't even blink, suggesting a few romantic restaurants to try out. Considering she'd spend most of the flight braced for the funny looks Raf was almost certainly going to get, and the judgment they might receive from the adoption people, it was a relief to have a pleasant conversation.

When they were in the car, Raf said, “You know, I had a kid in Wakanda ask me if I was an albino.”

She leaned back and pretended to study him. "Yeah, I can see that.”

“I’m just saying. Maybe people don’t want to assume.”

"I think people who pick people up at the airport have probably seen everything and are immune to weird." She tucked her head onto his shoulder. "Not that you're weird.”

“I am _very_ weird.”

"Fine, then you're _my_ weird.”

He moved her scarf a little so he could kiss her temple. “I love you.”

"I love you, too. I'd like to have fun this trip, if we can. It is our honeymoon.”

When they reached the hotel, the driver got their bags out and passed them to the bellhop. Then he looked at Raf and asked, “May I take a picture of your wife? My daughters will never believe I met you.”

He grinned and looked at Kam. "That's up to her."

"Of course," she said immediately. "How many daughters do you have?”

He grinned. “Four, and they all love you.”

She posed for the picture, then rummaged in her bag and pulled out four of the Avenger branded headscarves she carried with her everywhere. "Here. Tell them I said hello.”

He thanked her, and then got back in his car to drive off. Kamala waved a little, then they went inside.

The fussing. . .turned out to be a theme. The hotel—the nicest one in Islamabad—had upgraded them to the presidential suite, and there was a buffet spread waiting for them when they got there. She signed autographs and stood for pictures. The American in her was _very_ thrown by the fact that despite being a clearly famous superhero, everyone asked Raf’s permission for things. It was still Pakistan, after all.

Finally, they were in their room, with Nazzie napping in one of the beds. She'd woken up for some of the fawning and had been a little flummoxed. Kam didn't think she realized she was famous. She'd managed to worm her way into some of the pictures though.

"I may need a nap myself," she admitted, sinking onto the little couch in their room with a yawn.

“I am happy to tuck you in,” Raf replied.

"Will you carry me to bed?" she teased. "As my big strong husband?”

“Depends, can I get in there with you?”

"I'd be bereft if you didn’t."

He scooped her up and she giggled. “Come on, I’m pretty sure there’s a second bedroom.” She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him as he carried her to the other door. Somehow he managed to not bang into anything, which, being them, would have been smashed. At the bed he murmured, “I thought you were tired?”

"Mmm, I find myself with a convenient second wind.”


	14. Chapter 14

The next day they met with the coordinator and a lawyer, and then the paperwork began.

It turned out Raf had been right to put the work into finding that marriage register and bringing it. The whole thing would be a lot harder without the evidence of—and explanation for—his conversion. It might have still be fishy if it was anyone else, but Kamala was famous, and they were clearly looking for a reason to accommodate her.

When he first joined the team, he mentioned that he didn’t like crowds, and didn’t like to be photographed. One of them had snorted and said, “Don’t go ever go to Harlem with Eli.”

In Pakistan, Kamala seemed to be about the same. They couldn't go anywhere without getting swarmed. Even some of the assistants at the lawyer's office seemed in awe of her. When they broke for lunch, it took five minutes to walk down the street to the restaurant because they were stopped by a gaggle of kids who all wanted to meet the Avenger.

When they were finally seated - by a nervous waiter who also clearly recognized her - Kamala commented, "You know, when we first started I almost stopped wearing the hijab.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

"Yeah. I wore it as a teenager because my parents wanted me to, but I always sort of figured I'd make my own decision when I left for college. Then the accident happened and I went to live in military housing and I just kept wearing it. It was comforting and the guards tended to treat me with a little more respect. But then we moved to New York and started going on missions and getting famous." She gave a wry smile. "I got _a lot_ of hate mail. I was The Muslim Avenger and it made so many people angry. I just wondered if it was worth it. Then I got a letter from a girl in Michigan. Apparently kids at school had been teasing her about her scarf. A couple people had tried to yank it off. But then I started showing up on TV and suddenly it stopped. Girls were asking her what it meant and if they could wear one too. It hadn't solved all her problems, but have someone famous and 'cool' wearing a hijab meant she might be cool too. I marched down to Darcy's office and told her we needed to make Avenger brand hijabs." She sipped her water. "I figure, all those assholes can be mad at me if it means kids like that get a little less hate.”

“It tortured me,” he said with a wry smile. “I spend way too much time wondering what your hair looked like.”

She laughed. "Was it worth the wait?”

“It was probably _better_ for the wait. People in general could do with less instant gratification.”

"I'm certainly not going to argue. Though I admit the anticipation was getting to me a bit by the end." She smiled a little sheepishly. "Thank you for being patient.”

“It’s something you gain when you’ve been alive as long as I have. Seriously, back in the day everything took forever. When I first came to America it took a week to get from New York to Philly.”

She shuddered dramatically. "I suppose it's rather ironic I moved so slow in this one particular area.”

“Nothing wrong with guarding the part of you that’s private. Especially because literally every part of you that you _don’t_ cover the world feels is fair game to stare at.”

For a moment she looked almost sad. Or maybe just stressed. "I didn't realize I'd get swarmed this badly. It's a little exhausting.”

He reached out and put his hands over hers. “This is the one part of you that isn’t bulletproof,” he said. “I will do my best to protect it.”

"Thank you," she said softly. The waiter came by to take their orders and bring their drinks. When he was gone, Kamala cleared her throat. "There was something else I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Do I snore?” She looked oddly nervous, so he tried to lighten the mood.

"Only a little." It did get a little smile. "I was thinking. . . when we've settled everything here and go back home, I'd like to look into going back to school.”

He grinned at her. “Education is a fun thing to do with immortality.”

"That's what I figured. Maybe I can beat Stark and Ada's degree records." She stirred her coffee and sipped it. "I feel like sometimes my life got put on pause when the vibranium hit me. And now, with you and Nazzie, it's starting up again.”

“Good,” he said. “Talking about the future seemed to make you uncomfortable, so I tried not to.”

"I know. And I appreciate that." She glanced out the restaurant window, then back at her cup. "The future was very big and very scary. Before. I figured I'd ignore it as long as I could." She smiled and looked back at him. "It doesn't feel that way anymore.”

“That makes me happy. And not just because I’m dying to discuss with someone how I hope we’ll get to visit Mars.”

She grinned, looking very happy and very young at the same time. "Terraforming, or geodomes?”

“God, you’ve thought about it too. I _love_ you.”

"I think the real question is if we'll ever get out of this galaxy. Oh! Or the bottom of the ocean.”

“I don’t think even Asgardians have been out of the galaxy.”

"Well, then, you could be the first.”

“Clearly I chose wisely in a wife.”

That earned him another wide grin. “Clearly."

Their food came not long after—two entrees each, as usual. For a bit they were quiet while they ate. “What were you thinking about studying?”

"I'm not sure. History seems sort of superfluous. And would probably make you angry at my school books. Maybe sociology or psych. I'd like to figure out how people work.”

“I’ve thought about teaching—I have I think 26 degrees—but I’d too figured I’d be angry at the course material.”

"You could do a lecture series," she offered. "No textbook. Just stand there and talk for 40 minutes three times a week.”

He tilted his head, considering. “Now that I’m famous, they might let me.”

"I'd think the colleges would be fighting to get you.”

There would probably be a lot of crowds. But still, it might be fun. “Maybe once Nazzie is in kindergarten.”

Kam nodded. "It's good to have plans.”

He moved onto his next dish, as did she. “We’ll need _some_ way to pay our food bills.”

"Sometimes I think Tony should just pay me in food. It would be more efficient.”

“How do you handle Ramadan? I fasted with Fatima exactly once and I passed out twice.”

"I wake up every three hours at night to eat," she said, making a face. "If I'm on mission I just eat normally. Allah doesn't require I hurt myself.”

“That’s what she told me. . . but this was 17th century Damascus. It was allowed but also considered very unmanly, so I had to hide it.”

"You don't have to fast with me," she told him. "Though you're welcome to join the midnight snacks.”

“Sounds like fun.”

They finished their lunch and headed back to the lawyers office to finish the last of the paperwork and interviews. It was oddly like he imagined an American immigration investigation might go. Personal questions to determine if they were really married, how their lives worked, what their house was like. Kam had brought pictures of their apartment, the Tower and the daycare and preschool Nazzie had been attending.

"That's the last of it," Ms. Chutani said, shaking their hands. "We're going to run the background and financial checks. Assuming no red flags pop up I'll be in touch in a couple days for you to sign the last of the paperwork and Nazzie will officially be your daughter.”

“My background paperwork was 80 pages long,” Raf said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it look longer than a few days. I have had several dozen identities over the last 800 or so years.”

"I had a long conversation with my colleagues and we've unanimously agreed to only worry about the last fifty years. What you did before that is none of our business. Except the conversion," she added, pointed at the box with the marriage register in it. "Because that simplifies our lives.”

He inclined his head. “I thought it might be of use. I do have some large gaps in record keeping, but the last century is pretty good. A lot of my paperwork burned during the 1906 earthquake. Was a great opportunity for con artists—people were just stealing buildings—but I’m not much of one.”

"We don't have the manpower or inclination to dig into centuries of data. You're both celebrities, so your lives are already pretty scrutinized. Nazneen is happy and clearly adores you both. We have enough displaced kids with no where to go, we have no interest in breaking up a functioning family. This," she gestured at the piles of paper and file folders, "Is just to make sure all the i's are dotted and t's crossed.”

Once they were in the car back to the hotel, Raf said, “I’m kind of disappointed I didn’t have to use that suitcase of cash.”

"I mean, you could have handed it over. I'm sure they'd have found use for it.”

“Maybe we should pass it out on the street.”

"I'm popular enough, thank you.”

“Not interested in a statue, huh?”

She made a face. "I am not Stark.”

“That’s unfortunate, sculpting was next on my list of hobbies to take up.”

"Well, I'm not opposed to some private modeling.”

He leaned over to kiss her. “That will certainly keep us entertained.”

"I really like being married," she whispered conspiratorially.

He chuckled. “Me too. Especially the part I imagine you’re currently thinking about.”

"That is top of my list.”

*

It took two weeks for all the paperwork to clear—far less than they’d been told to expect, but then when they went for their official adoption hearing the _judge_ wanted to take a picture with her.

In the end though, it was worth it. Nazzie was theirs, legally and officially. There was a lot of hugging.

They spent a few days out of the capital, visiting some of her cousins so they could meet Raf and Nazzie. There was a lot of food and a lot of parties. Then they were on their way back to New York, tired, overstimulated, but very, very happy.

“Have you thought about having a real honeymoon?” Raf asked her somewhere over the Atlantic, after they’d put Nazzie to bed.

"You don't think getting feasted by my distant relatives counts?”

“I mean, you and I go somewhere alone where they’ll serve us fruity drinks with little umbrellas.”

She looked over at him. "I am not opposed to this idea.”

“Might be nice to have some time that is just us.”

They were laying in their bed, though it was too early to sleep. She rolled to face him, propping her head up in a hand. "It might be short notice, but we could go away for Christmas. My family doesn't do anything. Nazzie could have a cultural exchange with the Bennets or Rogers and we could get some tropical time.”

He grinned. “You are a brilliant woman.”

"You married well," she told him solemnly.

“I hear there’s a house in Hawaii.”

"There is. Stark uses it at the holidays sometimes. But he likes me, so I'll call and ask once we're home.”

He was quiet a moment, and she could see he was thinking. She knew his face that well. “I was also thinking. . . maybe we could go up and see Asgard. Thor keeps inviting me.”

She didn't bother to hide her surprise. "Really? Last time we talked about it you seemed. . . pretty against it.”

“It’s where I’m from. You’re my wife. We may have to go live up there someday. And I’d like you to see it.”

"Do you think we could take Nazzie?”

Raf grinned. “Heimdal has a soft spot for inquisitive little girls.”

"That sounds like a fun family vacation, then.”

He reached out, pulling her closer. “Now that that’s settled, I’m open to suggestions as to what else to do with this very long flight.”

She grinned warm and happy at the thought. "I have a couple very good ideas," she replied, cuddling closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that is the end of Raf and Kam's story. Thank you so much for reading and for your comments.
> 
> A new ficlet will post this weekend and next week will start Peter and MJ's story.


End file.
